London: Senior HuT figure teaching at LSE
A senior figure in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a hardline Islamist group that the Government keeps "under continuous review" and the Conservatives want to ban, is teaching and preaching at a top university.
The Times has learnt that Reza Pankhurst, who was imprisoned in Egypt for membership of the group, is a teacher at the London School of Economics and regularly preaches to students at Friday prayers.
The group is supposedly barred from organising and speaking on campuses under the National Union of Students' policy of "no platform" for racist or fascist views. The presence of one of its prominent members as a university teacher raises new concerns about Islamist radicalisation on campus.
A new review of campus extremism began last month after it was discovered that the alleged Detroit airline bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a former president of the Islamic Society at University College London.
The Times understands that at least two London university lecturers are either supporters or members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Mr Pankhurst is a postgraduate student in the LSE's government department and teaches classes for the course "States, Nations and Empires".
On Fridays he is one of the regular speakers at prayers organised by the students' union Islamic Society in the college gym.
A society member told The Times: "He preaches every other week and is constantly bringing the subject around to politics, talking about Afghanistan and the need to establish the Caliphate [Islamic state].
"Only last week he was talking about the Detroit bomber and saying the guy was not radicalised in London and it was all to do with foreign policy.
"Last year he recommended we should attend a conference which I later discovered was organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir, but he never mentions the party by name."
(more)
Source: The Times
A senior figure in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a hardline Islamist group that the Government keeps "under continuous review" and the Conservatives want to ban, is teaching and preaching at a top university.
The Times has learnt that Reza Pankhurst, who was imprisoned in Egypt for membership of the group, is a teacher at the London School of Economics and regularly preaches to students at Friday prayers.
The group is supposedly barred from organising and speaking on campuses under the National Union of Students' policy of "no platform" for racist or fascist views. The presence of one of its prominent members as a university teacher raises new concerns about Islamist radicalisation on campus.
A new review of campus extremism began last month after it was discovered that the alleged Detroit airline bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a former president of the Islamic Society at University College London.
The Times understands that at least two London university lecturers are either supporters or members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Mr Pankhurst is a postgraduate student in the LSE's government department and teaches classes for the course "States, Nations and Empires".
On Fridays he is one of the regular speakers at prayers organised by the students' union Islamic Society in the college gym.
A society member told The Times: "He preaches every other week and is constantly bringing the subject around to politics, talking about Afghanistan and the need to establish the Caliphate [Islamic state].
"Only last week he was talking about the Detroit bomber and saying the guy was not radicalised in London and it was all to do with foreign policy.
"Last year he recommended we should attend a conference which I later discovered was organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir, but he never mentions the party by name."
(more)
Source: The Times
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