France says ‘Islamist militants’ behind group that helps Muslim prisoners

UK advocacy group Cage, which has a focus on Muslim detainees, has been called an organisation of “Islamist militants” by the French government’s counter-extremism body.

The Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalisation has published nine tweets accusing Cage, founded by former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Moazzam Begg, of supporting terrorists and says it has been conducting a “smear campaign” against France.

The committee has accused Cage of supporting the killing of French teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by an extremist, and of backing Mohammed Emwazi, ringleader of the ISIS terrorist cell known as “The Beatles” by captives because of their British accents.

“For several months, @UK_ CAGE, a network of Islamist militants, has been spreading fake news and lies, in a misleading and smear campaign against France. Let’s set the record straight about this organisation and who’s behind it,” the committee tweeted.

It said its information included elements that “expose the sympathy” that Cage has for groups with a common hatred of democracy.

The entities all share the “same tendency to support and reproduce fake news about European democracies, in this case France. These different elements demonstrate the very real continuum between … propaganda and that of certain networks advocating radical Islam”, it said.

“Claiming a very strange conception of human rights, Cage also supported Mohammed Emwazi, one of the most active [ISIS] executioners,” it said.

“Far from the empowerment and the objective of justice that it claims, Cage brings together a real Islamist ecosystem. Extremism is a must at Cage.”

The committee also said: “France has no lesson to learn from [these] structures.”

On Tuesday, the Policy Exchange, a British think tank, published a report in which it urged the UK government to stop all funding of the group over its campaign against the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme. It called on the UK Home Office to set up and run a Centre for the Study of Extremism, a communications unit to combat disinformation.

Its aim would be to would ensure government departments do not support or fund groups “that disseminate false narratives and conspiracy theories about Prevent, who campaign against counter-terrorism or counter-extremism efforts”.

Policy Exchange described Cage, the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Engagement and Development in its report as organisations that have “sought to undermine Prevent and counterextremism efforts”.

Last month, Cage published a report accusing France of “state-led persecution” of Muslims “on an industrial scale”.

Its report, “We are Beginning to Spread Terror”: The State-Sponsored Persecution of Muslims in France, accused the government of President Emmanuel Macron of a four-year campaign of Islamophobia. In response to France’s accusations, Cage tweeted that it was unsure why the French government was “rattled”.

Cage drew controversy in 2015 when its research director described Emwazi, who beheaded western hostages in Syria and made propaganda videos of the killings, as a “beautiful young man”.

Emwazi was in contact with Cage both before he went to Syria and after he returned and said he had been harassed by the intelligence services.

Mr Macron was re-elected for a second term as French president on Sunday, defeating farright rival Marine Le Pen, who had pledged to bar Muslim women from wearing headscarves in public.

Cage was accused of supporting the killing of French teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by an extremist