Controversial rights group teaches young Muslims how spies monitor social media

YOUNG Muslims are being taught how the authorities can see what they do on WhatsApp by a controversial human rights group, it can be disclosed.

Cage, an advocacy organisation that once described Mohammed Emwazi, better known as “Jihadi John” as a “beautiful kind man”, is teaching people how to avoid criminality while using the messaging service.

A poster for the event, showing a pair of hands holding a smartphone while bound in handcuffs, promises “guidelines” on what “can and can’t be done online whilst using media technologies”.

“Many people, in particular the youth [sic], are being criminalised based on things they may have watched or WhatsApp groups that they may have been part of,” it reads. “This talk will present a guideline on what is private and what is not and how you should treat online and technological communications.”

The security services have warned that extremists linked to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were attempting to radicalise people through WhatsApp and other social media forums.

Robert Hannigan, the former director of GCHQ, said in 2014 the extremists “use messaging and social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, and a language their peers understand”.

He said the terror group had “embraced the web as a noisy channel in which to promote itself, intimidate people, and radicalise new recruits.”

Earlier this year an extremist who launched a fatal attack on Westminster was found to have sent a message on WhatsApp just minutes before starting the killing. Khalid Masood posted that he was waging jihad in revenge for military action against Muslim countries in the Middle East, according to The Independent.

Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, criticised WhatsApp for failing to hand over the encrypted messages days after the March attack.

The security services have concerns that extremists are managing to use social media while remaining undetected because of encryption.

The social media event was advertised for February 25 and led by Cage’s Cerie Bullivant, according to the poster on the group’s website.

Ms Rudd earlier this year wrote an article for this newspaper calling on social media companies to do more to stop the spread of radical content.

Cage was approached for comment but did not respond.