Hate-spewing lover of evil Islamic State ...who YOU pay to teach our children
AN ISLAMIC State supporter who believes victims of terror attacks will burn in hell has been working as a teaching assistant, a Mail on Sunday investigation can reveal.
Imran Miah, 27, who has taught at a number of secondary schools in Britain, set out his vile agenda on Facebook and Instagram.
He warned that religious opponents face attack with a ‘blunt butter knife’ and issued a series of deeply disturbing homophobic statements. In one sickening post, he endorsed the barbaric execution of homosexuals.
As well as celebrating IS military victories on Facebook, Miah also uploaded a photograph of the terror group’s black flag and mocked the traditional minute’s silence for its victims.
A supply teaching assistant, Miah is believed to have worked at a number of state schools in London and beyond.
Last night, politicians reacted with disbelief that someone with such views could work in schools and called for an urgent police investigation. In common with all teachers, Miah would have been vetted by the criminal record checking service. But as he used a pseudonym online, his rants apparently went undetected.
In recent years the Government have grown increasingly concerned about the risk of radicalisation in schools, though their fears have normally been confined to faith schools and attempts to introduce a radical Islamist ethos.
Last year, tens of thousands of teachers were put through a mass counter terrorism training programme to help them spot and report potential extremists.
Worryingly, Miah, who lives in Manor Park, East London, is understood to have taught only in state schools.
Our enquiries also revealed that the boxing and martial arts enthusiast posted an advertisement for the nearby Ilford gym that was used by the three London Bridge attackers as an impromptu headquarters before they mowed down three people and killed five others in knife attacks last month.
In September 2015 on Facebook, Miah expressed anger at how children are encouraged to be tolerant of homosexuality, saying: ‘No child is safe, from nursery to secondary. These schools are breeding factories… of future gay rights activists.’ Elsewhere, he quoted an apparent Islamic classical source, stating: ‘The highest point in the town should be found and the homosexual should be thrown head first from it, then stones should be thrown at him.’
Such barbaric executions often took place in Raqqa, the IS’s capital in Syria, with footage posted on social media.
After posting his homophobic rant Miah uploaded a photo of homework he was marking. The picture was accompanied by a message beseeching God to help him fulfil his ambition to become a fully qualified teacher.
He said: ‘I consider my position one that is blessed regardless of how slow it takes for me to… reach my aspirations and fulfil my ambitions as an academic who longs to impart knowledge and benefit others.’
Teaching assistants can work with individual pupils or with groups of children and undertake duties that free up a teacher’s time, such as
He posted homophobic ravings with picture of pupils’ homework
preparing the classroom. A recent study suggested that they are increasingly used to cover lessons.
Last night Miah’s mother, Anwara Begum, said her son was currently abroad for ‘three or four months’. Initially she said he was in Egypt but later said he had returned to his native Bangladesh. She said he had recently been working in a hospital. She added: ‘He was at so many schools… he used to go to far schools as well. He was not at one place.’
In another post, Miah taunts the families of the 86 people killed in the terror attack in Nice last year.
Under a newspaper article mourning the victims, he writes: ‘Our dead are in Jannah [paradise] whilst yours are in Fire.’
All his abhorrent sentiments featured on his Facebook account, whose pages were open to public view while he was teaching. However, inquiries by this newspaper forced Miah – who uses the name Imran Ibn Fareed on social media – to remove them last week.
Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terror legislation, said Miah’s online statements warranted a police investigation.
He said they may breach the Terrorism Act of 2006 – which bans indirect encouragement of terror- ism – as well as hate crime laws. ‘It is alarming that somebody was being employed as a supply teacher, given that this type of internet activity was not compatible with someone being a supply teacher,’ said Lord Carlile.
Another peer, Lord West of Spithead, a former security Minister, said: ‘If people are writing that sort of stuff, employers should be allowed to say they don’t want someone like that working for them.
‘If you published a book with that in it, you would be fined, so I think the internet companies should be treated like publishing houses.
‘That would be a very good way of making them pay more attention to this.’
Miah is registered as a supply teacher with Enlighten Supply Pool Limited. Last week, the company told an undercover reporter that Miah was a ‘teaching assistant’ who has had previous classroom experience. When later approached for an official response, a spokesman said Miah was on their books but did not receive any assignments. Within an hour of visiting his mother’s house, our reporter was contacted by a man claiming to be Miah’s ‘cousin’ who said: ‘From what I know about my cousin, he has no sort of support for anything he said.’
When the reporter asked why he was posting inflammatory material on social media, the man replied: ‘Well we are not sure if he is doing it, it could be anyone.’
Two hours later, Miah’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were taken down. But not before he expressed regret at the fall of Mosul, Iraq’s second city, which had been in the hands of IS militants, who carried out public beheadings, forced Yazidi women into sexual slavery and even banned music.
He said: ‘From the ashes of Mosul will rise a generation who love Allah and Allah loves them, they will not fear the blame of the blamers. They will be a thorn in the eyes, a spear in the chest and a raging fire in the hearts of the oppressors.’
In other Facebook posts last year, Miah talked of setting up an Islamic caliphate in Palestine, liberating it from the ‘shackles of Jews’.
He said: ‘The Flames of War will rip through Israel, liberating it from the shackles of the Jews.’.
Miah also expressed vile sectarian hatred of Shia Muslims, who are the second sect of Islam. He uses the offensive term ‘rafidah’ for Shias. The term usually means ‘rejectors’, since they reject Sunni orthodox Islam. He warned Shia Muslims not to try to befriend him on Facebook.
He said: ‘Stinking Shia Rawafidh [rejectors] best stop Friend Requesting me on fb. Return to Islam you Murtaddeen [apostates] and only then you’re my brother in faith, till then, nothing stands before the Muwahhid [believer in one God] and the likes of your kind except a blunt butter knife.’
He placed an icon of a knife next to the post.
Last month, Theresa May called on Facebook and other social media companies to do more to curb the ‘poisonous propaganda’ that fuels terror attacks such as the atrocities in London Bridge and Manchester.
Facebook, widely criticised for failing to take action, has now promised to step up its attempts to tackle the problem.
Last night, The Mail on Sunday passed its evidence to Scotland Yard. A police spokesman said: ‘We would advise individuals to report any content online which is suspected to be of a terrorist or extremist nature via the referral form gov.uk/report-terrorism.
‘Every referral is looked at by the national Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit.’
‘This is not compatible with being a teacher’