Islamists’ bid to meet in primary school

CAGE tried to use a primary school to host an event involving extremist speakers, the Mail can reveal.

Police alerted the school about the planned event just hours before it was due to go ahead.

Staff had no idea that its hall had been booked by CAGE or that it was to be used to showcase some of Britain’s most notorious Islamists. One of the planned speakers was a cleric who has defended stoning and female genital mutilation.

Another was the head of Hizb Uttahrir – the organization that wants to create an Islamic Caliphate with Sharia Law.

The talk was due to be held on the evening of November 5 on the site of the Chobham Academy in Newham, East London. The school is understood to have believed the event was connected to a local community football team.

CAGE deny misleading the school or an event booking company over the nature of the talks.

But a source close to the 1,800pupil Chobham Academy said the event would never have been approved had staff known CAGE was involved.

The source told the Mail the event was only stopped after intervention by the police, who are under- stood to have been monitoring CAGE’s activities. ‘He was just a guy making football bookings and he’d booked the hall for an event,’ the source said. ‘He wasn’t a name that came up on Google.

‘No booking was made for CAGE. No mention was made of a political event of any kind.

‘The school and the booking company found out it was CAGE two days before it was due to happen.

‘Someone in the local police contacted the school to say, were they aware of this thing that was being advertised on websites? They were shocked.’

The CAGE member who booked the event is thought to regularly play football at the Academy – which is set in the heart of the Olympic Village and regularly hires out its sports pitches and event spaces to the community.

The source added: ‘The main thing for the school is that it was cancelled. The school is trying to educate young people in London and particularly in a sensitive part of London. All the stuff they are educating them about would have been undermined.’

CAGE swiftly moved the talk to a commercial event space in East London. There, men and women sat separately and clerics, including some with extreme views, spoke at length. One speaker, Azad Ali, appeared to criticise the fact that Muslims felt unable to hold prayers for jihadis because of laws that ban the glorification of terrorism.

Another, Ibtihal Bsis – a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir – said the Government was guilty of ‘the psychological ethnic cleansing of Muslims’. And Dr Abdul Wahid, the group’s UK head, said: ‘I’ve never defined myself as a British citizen before I was a practising Muslim and I don’t ever define myself as a British Muslim, I define myself as a Muslim.’

CAGE director Dr Adnan Siddiqui told the audience to ‘stand up and fight here, this is where your fight is’.

He suggested that Ukip leader Nigel Farage and Willam Shawcross, the chairman of the Charity Commission, were ‘ preachers of hate’. ‘ Just because they have a tweed suit and they speak in a nice accent doesn’t mean they are any different,’ he said. When an audience member asked why the venue had been changed, Dr Siddiqui replied: ‘Ask Prevent,’ in reference to the Government’s anti-radicalisation policy. He then added, to laughter from the audience: ‘ Because of British values.’

The group’s outreach director Moazzam Begg said: ‘Pressure was put on the initial place where we booked and that pressure was from the outside, so this is another evidence of ... Prevent being unduly forced upon organisations...’

‘They were told because it’s politics, even though the place in question teaches politics.’

The Metropolitan Police said an officer had spoken with the venue prior to the cancellation. A government source said the Home Office had also been aware of the event. Chobham Academy confirmed the talk was axed by the booking contractor. James Woods of Schools Plus, which takes booking for Chobham Academy, said a customer had ‘not completed our normal procedures’.

However, CAGE said i t had ‘explicitly explained’ what the event was about and stressed it was not ‘party-political’.

A spokesman added that Mr Siddiqui had been ‘encouraging British Muslims to tackle the discriminatory nature of the legislation they face in Britain’ when he told them to ‘stand up and fight.’

Mr Ali said: ‘ I categorically denounce terrorism, including terrorist acts carried out by the socalled Islamic State.’

Nobody at Hizb-Ut-Tahrir was available for comment.

‘Stand up and fight here’