The Yorkshire Evening Post reports on the planned EDL demonstration against a Leeds pub which is due to be converted into an Islamic community centre after an application submitted by UK Islamic Mission was unanimously approved by the local council.

The paper reports on the twitter message by EDL leader, Stephen Lennon, claiming the demo would be a “lively one”.

The local paper also notes the presence of Gavin Boby, the self-styled ‘mosque-buster’ at the planning meeting in February where the council appraised the application.

According to the local paper, “More than 400 letters of objection were received over traffic congestion and noise concerns.

“Many also expressed fears the centre would be used exclusively by the Islamic community.”

The paper also notes that ahead of the council meeting “the words ‘a mosque’ were daubed on the building” despite the planning application specifying facilities as: “a public gym, IT suite, library, training facilities and a prayer room for up to 70 worshippers.”

The Daily Telegraph recently published an article over concerns expressed in a Department of Education memo on ‘socially conservative’ faith schools “where pupils may be encouraged to cut themselves off from mainstream society”. The ‘majority’ of faith schools noted in the memo are Muslim, with small references to Orthodox Jewish and schools run by the Christian denomination, the Plymouth Brethren.

According to the paper, officials say there is “a gap between what we think we know and what we can prove” because the undercover methods used by journalists are not open to civil servants.

The paper notes that as of this year, Independent School Standards will require respect for “fundamental British values” including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.” The school inspections body, Ofsted, will introduce special inspectors to look at faith schools’ compliance with the requirements as part of a “prioritised inspection programme”. However, the DT states, the remit will be limited to looking at the ‘ethos’ of independent schools rather than their day to day operation.

In state schools, the Department for Education has “no system in place to identify institutional extremism”, resorting  to the use of an ‘unreliable’ measure, such as data on referrals made by schools to the Prevent strategy administered programme ‘Channel’. The programme is designed to help individuals move away from extremism.

The DT states that ‘schools of interest’ include three run by the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, which ‘reports claim’ “is run by senior members and activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir”; the Alif Academy in Forest Gate, East London, where “the local council has raised concerns about links with Hizb ut-Tahrir”; and the Darul Uloom school in Birmingham associated with the Tablighi Jamaat, “where an undercover documentary recorded children being taught a hardline version of Islam that criticised Hindus and Jews”.

The report also cites concerns over proposals for private Islamic schools in Rochdale and Birmingham and names a number of individuals involved in terrorism who have held teaching assistant positions in state schools.

It also cites the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, Prevent, which “warned last year that some people who are supportive of terrorist groups and ideologies had “sought and sometimes gained positions in schools or in groups which work closely with young people”, and “also reported that a minority of independent faith schools had been “actively promoting views that are contrary to British values, such as intolerance of other cultures and gender inequality” and had “allowed extremist views to be expressed by staff, visitors or pupils.”

It adds that the government is concerned about madrasas which are “promoting a highly conservative version of Islam and spreading extremist views, particularly against non-Muslims.”

Faith schools, and particularly Muslim faith schools, have become a point of increasing contention in recent years. Whilst concerns that extremist views are taught to young people should be taken seriously, the narrative of the DT article fails to give a balanced perspective on the issue. The way in which this is framed insinuates that ‘social conservatism’ in Muslim schools is a problem in its own right, and a comparatively more perilous problem in Muslim faith schools than in those of other faith traditions.

Moreover, it is possible that the DT is exaggerating the extent of the issue- by its own admission, there is a gap between what the government ‘thinks it knows’ and what can be proved about the ‘institutional extremism’ in many of these schools. With specific reference to the DT’s citing claims that the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation “is run by senior members and activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir”, it is important to note that the Charity Commission cleared the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation of any links with Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2010, concluding that it was "satisfied that the charity is operating as a charitable educational organisation".

With regards to concerns raised about madrasas, it is worth pointing to a 2011 IPPR report, whose survey of 179 madrasas found that “most have a child protection policy and carry out CRB checks on staff”, though there were concerns that a significant minority do not.

The report also brings to light one issue which has repeatedly been raised about the implementation of counter-terrorism policy and the Prevent strategy - the way in which Muslims are treated as a ‘suspect community’. The extent to which this manifests itself in practice is such that in some instances, police forces have admitted to monitoring nurseries and young children as part of their ‘counter-radicalisation’ efforts. Perhaps the Department of Education, and indeed the DT, need reminding of the Prevent Strategy’s own statements concerning radicalisation and extremism in schools:

“We regard Prevent work with children and with schools as an important part of the strategy. But this work needs to be proportionate. It must not start from a misplaced assumption that there is a significant problem that needs to be resolved. We have seen some evidence of very limited radicalisation of children by extremist or terrorist groups. There is further evidence that some schools – and some supplementary schools – have used teaching materials which may encourage intolerance. And we know that some extremist or terrorist organisations have held positions of influence in education or in other organisations working closely with children. But these issues must be kept in perspective. And they are not all within the remit of Prevent.”

The Independent today notes the exploitation by the English Defence League of the guilty pleas entered by six men yesterday for admitting to ‘preparing acts of terrorism’ against an EDL rally in Dewsbury last June.

The men, Omar Mohammed Khan, 28, Mohammed Hasseen, 23, Anzal Hussain, 24, Mohammed Saud, 22, Zohaib Ahmed, 22, and Jewel Uddin, 27, all pleaded guilty to the charges at Woolwich crown court yesterday.

EDL leader, Stephen Lennon, has since posted a comment on the far right movement’s twitter page suggesting the group’s planned demonstration against a proposed mosque in Leeds on Saturday would be a “lively one”, according to the Independent.

There are perhaps two notable observations on the coverage of the events:

Firstly, the volume of media coverage in relation to the crimes plotted by the six men who all pleaded guilty yesterday – which has been considerable, and understandably so. But to put things in perspective, one wonders why it is that incidents of far right extremists plotting criminal acts is lesser known? The disparity in media reporting on terrorism – regardless of the ethnicity of the perpetrators – has been already documented although it’s a lesson still unlearnt it would seem.

Secondly, the effect of media output on threat perception and reality deserves consideration. A speech delivered by the Security Minister, James Brokenshire, in March on the ‘real’ threat posed by far right extremism in the UK pales in comparison to the level of coverage received by the six men from the West Midlands.

The EU’s Europol agency reports have documented in recent years the number of terrorist incidents of a religiously motivated nature and those motivated by separatist, nationalist and animal rights activism. As Michael Privot, of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) has observed:

“In reality, 50% of Europe’s counter-terrorism resources have been used just for the 0.5 percent of terrorism called ‘Islamic’.

“…given that the forces of order concentrate half their personnel on the fight against the Islamist terrorist who represents almost nothing, they do not take care of the much worse threats such as the terrorism of the extreme right such as we see in Germany, or recently in Italy, where there are certainly Muslim communities who are victims, along with black people, Roma and Jewish communities.”

Little wonder that the EDL is seeking to exploit yesterday’s court hearing to further its aggressive anti-Muslim agenda while ignoring its own role in the symbiotic relationship formed between extremists in both camps.

Islamophobia Watch draws our attention to the findings of a study carried out by Jonas R Kunst, David L. Sam, and Pal Ulleberg, into Muslims’ perceptions of Islamophobia, published in the International Journal of Intercultural relations. Whilst a lot of research has been carried out on Islamophobia in wider society, this particular study aims to fill the gap in knowledge of how Muslim minorities themselves perceive Islamophobia.

The study was carried out with a sample of 1,344 Muslims who live as minorities in European countries (French-Maghrebis; German-Turks; German Arabs; and British-Pakistanis). As part of the research, a ‘Perceived Islamophobia Scale’ was developed, comprising of three subscales of Islamophobia (‘general fear; fear of Islamisation; Islamophobia in the media’)

Significantly, across the groups, the participants “appear to experience the highest level of Islamophobia in the media.” The study suggests that this is more so the case in the UK than in Germany and France from where the other samples were drawn.

Another finding of the study is that British Pakistanis perceived the lowest levels of Islamophobia of all the groups in the study, with French Maghrebis perceiving the highest levels of Islamophobia.  German Arabs and Turks came between these groups.

The study attributes these differences in perceived Islamophobia to a number of factors. It suggests that the lower perception of Islamophobia amongst British Pakistanis may be due to the relative historic accommodation of “religious pluralism...and freedom of religious association” in comparison to other western multicultural societies. This sharply contrasts with the policy of laicite, or secularism adopted by the French state which has involved “a quite aggressive division between the state and religion”. The paper states that “this public climate may, in turn, explain the high perceptions of Islamophobia among the French-Maghrebis in the present study”. Similarly, the authors suggests that the level of perceived Islamophobia amongst German Muslims- higher than the UK but lower than in France, may also reflect the ‘public climate towards Islam and Muslims in Germany’, as being “more heated than in the UK, but less heated than in France”.

Finally, the study found that irrespective of personal experiences of discrimination, perceiving belonging to a group that is feared in society has a negative effect on Muslims’ psychological health, such as perceived stress and psychological distress. The authors state that as a result, “solely enforcing strict anti-discrimination laws upon an otherwise islamophobic society seems unlikely to protect Muslims from psychological harm.”

The authors recommend that policy makers and the media take onboard the findings of the study. Given the harmful effects that perceived Islamophobia can have on Muslims, it is advised that those in public policy as well as the media campaign in manners that scrutinise and refute "negative clichés about Muslims and Islam” with the aim of ‘internally changing’ “their populations’ group norms and attitudes”.

The study’s findings shed light not only on the way that European Muslims perceive Islamophobia in their societies, but also on the psychological impact that these perceptions have on the relevant communities. The issue of Islamophobia pervading public discourse and becoming acceptable has been raised in relation to countries across Europe, including the UK. As a report by Amnesty International published earlier this year stated, “Regrettably, some political parties’ messages and the portrayal of Muslims in some sections of the media reinforce [stereotypical and negative] views” of Muslims. That the media is perceived as most Islamophobic in this study comes as no surprise, particularly in the UK where the vilification of Islam and Muslims by the press has been noted in a number of studies.

The authors’ recommendations- that both politicians and the media take action to challenge anti-Muslim prejudices, are imperative to moving forward. In relation to the media in the UK, the publication of the Leveson report has created an opportunity for both politicians and the media to reflect on and reform the reporting of Islam and Muslims. In particular, the Leveson report makes recommendations which address the inflammatory and discriminatory reporting of Muslims, namely a third party complaints clause and powers to act on alleged discriminatory reporting. Though the industry has expressed concern over these recommendations, you can write to your MP via www.writetothem.com asking them to support the implementation of the recommendations. You can find out more by following the link here.

The full article in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations is available to download here.