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UK: British School Linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir Funding Restored

UK: ‘No evidence’ of extremism at Tottenham school — Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation
— December 14, 2009 report by Haringey Independent:
“It was alleged the school’s curriculum contained elements of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s version of Islam which calls for a union of all Muslim states into one global empire — the caliphate. It also rejects democracy as well as assimilation into Western culture.”
— “Haringey Council will continue funding the Islamic Shaksiyah Foundation in St Ann’s Road, Tottenham”

Harry’s Place Blog: “The Government Has Completely Dropped The Ball on Hizb ut Tahrir”
Daily Telegraph View

December 14, 2009 – Daily Telegraph reports: “Extremist schools: New evidence as Minister for Hizb ut Tahrir boobs again”
Andrew Gilligan in Daily Telegraph states:

— “In last week’s Spectator, I reported in her own words from a Hizb ut Tahrir pamphlet, the disgusting views of Farah Ahmed, the head of one of these schools and trustee of them both. You can see that at the end of my previous post on this blog. In a letter to this week’s magazine, Mr Balls has responded. ‘The pamphlet Mr Gilligan quoted from was written… six years ago,’ he says. “This is not evidence of extremist views actually being taught in the classroom.'”

“Leave aside that what should be ‘taught in the classroom’ was, in fact, the exact topic of the pamphlet. Leave aside that Mrs Ahmed has never repudiated her views. Leave aside even the absurdity of Mr Balls’ position (if supporters of the BNP — Hizb’s white equivalent – were running schools at public expense, I think we would be able to cut its funding without needing to prove that the children sing the Horst Wessel Song in class.)”

“Yet even without any of that, there is separate, and very compelling, evidence, of what is being taught at these schools – evidence which even the Minister for Hizb ut Tahrir might accept. It is the school’s curriculum (also, by the way, written by Farah Ahmed.) It’s been obtained and analysed by the think-tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion. And as their analysis shows, there are stiking parallels between what Hizb teaches its recruits – and Mrs Ahmed teaches her pupils.”

Andrew Gilligan for The Spectator reports that:
— “The main evidence that Mr Balls has made a massive blunder is a chapter in a Hizb ut Tahrir pamphlet, ‘Education and Identity’, written by one Farah Ahmed. Mrs Ahmed is the head teacher of one of the two schools, and also a trustee of the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF), which runs them both. If I were a Muslim parent, I would not let my child within 20 miles of her.”
— “In her chapter ‘The Western Education System and the British National Curriculum’, Mrs Ahmed attacks the religious studies elements of the national curriculum for ‘primarily push[ing] …the idea of ‘religious tolerance’.’’This, she says, ‘’further aids distancing the Muslim child from the concept of Islam being the only reference point.’ ”
— “In another chapter, co-authored with Hizb ut Tahrir’s women’s spokesman, Dr Nazreen Nawaz, Mrs Ahmed goes into great detail about how the education system would work in Hizb ‘caliphate’, the global Islamic superstate that is the party’s ultimate goal. (By extraordinary coincidence, some of the same themes are found in the ISF schools’ own curriculum document.)”
— “But it is Hizb ut Tahrir which is the avowed enemy of multiculturalism — and is just as loathed by most British Muslims as the far right is loathed by most white people.”