SENIOR members of an Islamist group that David Cameron and former Labour leader Tony Blair wanted banned have secured potentially influential positions as governors at London schools.
The Sunday Express has identified two schools where well-known figures in Hizb ut-Tahrir were or are governors.
Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) is a non- violent political body that campaigns for a worldwide Islamic state.
In 2007 Mr Cameron, then Opposition leader, told MPs he regarded the group as “extremist” and that it “tried to radicalise young people”.
Last year the Prime Minister, who plans to use the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, 12 months from today, to reassert British values as a Magna Carta for modern Britain, again spoke out against the group but it remains a lawful organisation.
However, there are new concerns about its influence on the school system in some parts of Britain. One school in Tower Hamlets, east London, Kobi Nazrul Primary School, has just been the subject of an urgent Ofsted inspection due to poor Sats results last year and a breakdown of relations between school governors and the local authority.
Solicitor Mohammed Abdul Kuddus is a governor and a former chairman. He is also described by HuT as a senior member of its organisation.
Senior Tower Hamlets council officials were aware of his links and it is understood these were relayed to Education Secretary Michael Gove’s department.
There is no suggestion Mr Kuddus has used his position to influence teaching policy at the school, whose pupils are almost all from a Bangladeshi Muslim background. He did not respond to a request for comment.
The other school identified by the Sunday Express is Cleves Primary School in the neighbouring borough of Newham, where Yusuf Patel served as governor between 2007 and 2011.
Mr Patel was until 2010 when he left a prominent activist in HuT, which his brother Jalaluddin Patel once led. He also runs the Association of Muslim Governors (AMG) and has previously invited to seminars Tahir Alam, alleged to be a ringleader of the Trojan Horse “plot”, in which hardline Muslims, it is claimed, were trying to take over school governing bodies in Birmingham.
Homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle choiceYusuf Patel
These were designed to encourage Muslim parents to become school governors “with the aim of bringing about real change through greater participation from the Muslim community in education”.
The six seminars held in Birmingham, West London, East London, South London, Leicester and Bradford were organised by the AMG.
In 2009, while Mr Patel was a governor at Cleves, he co-authored a 28-page booklet urging Muslim parents to be school governors specifically so they could have a greater say over the teaching of sex and relationship education (SRE).
The booklet, entitled SRE – A Muslim Community Perspective, reminds parents that children must be taught that “relationships outside of marriage are completely forbidden”.
It reminds would-be governors this is taken so seriously by Allah the punishment under Sharia law is to be flogged 100 times.
Children should also be told from a young age that men and women should not generally mix, the guidance states, and that segregation in public should be the norm.
In March 2009 Mr Patel gave a lecture that is still available on YouTube in which he says: “Homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle choice.”
Yesterday Mr Patel told the Sunday Express he did not raise SRE policy when a governor at Cleves.
He said: “I never tried to change the character of the school. My former membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir was well known and I kept the two roles very separate.”
He said that the booklet was not an attempt to change the curriculum, merely to remind would-be governors of what an Islamic SRE policy should look like.
Regarding Kobi Nazrul school, the Department for Education said: “Ofsted recently carried out an inspection at Kobi Nazrul school due to concerns about Sats test results. We await the results with interest.”
Officials at Newham Council say Cleves is a vastly improved school and its regular newsletters suggest huge attempts to foster a harmonious multicultural environment.
On its website a Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman described the “Trojan Horse hoax” as another example of the Government’s “hatred of Islam”.
Mr Alam, who denies being a ringleader of Trojan Horse, was unavailable for comment.
He is chairman of the Park View Educational Trust, which runs three of six Birmingham schools placed in special measures.
He is also vice-chairman of governors at another school allegedly targeted.
He has previously insisted there is no plot, attacking investigations as “Islamophobic” and a “witch-hunt”.
Last week it was revealed that schools in Bradford, London and Luton have come under suspicion for allegations similar to those in Birmingham, where 21 schools are under investigation.
Expanding on his Magna Carta for modern Britain idea in a newspaper article today, an intervention clearly aimed at British Muslim extremists, Mr Cameron said it was time to lead a fightback and be more muscular in promoting British values.
He said: “They’re not optional, they’re the core of what it is to live in Britain.
“In recent years we have been in danger of sending out a worrying message: that if you don’t want to believe in democracy, that’s fine; that if equality isn’t your bag, don’t worry about it; that if you’re completely intolerant of others, we will still tolerate you.
This has not just led to division, it has also allowed extremism to flourish.”
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