Why would the Quilliam Foundation accuse such moderate bodies of being dominated by extremist ideology?
It might be because British police believe that you can't fight Muslim terrorism without working with extremists. And so it is not surprising that they use Muslim extremists as advisers in their counter-terrorism forces. And so, Mohamed Ali Harrath, CEO of the Islam Channel and adviser to the Muslim Contact Unit, is wanted in Tunisia for founding the Tunisian Islamic Front (FIT), which, Tunisia says, wants to establish "an Islamic state by means of armed revolutionary violence". Azad Ali of the Muslim Safety Forum supported terrorists on his blog and was later forced to resign from his position due to his radical positions. His blog is hosted by the Islamic Europe Forum, which itself is a radical organization.
Or it might just be McCarthy tactics.
Via the Guardian:
A secret list prepared for a top British security official accuses peaceful Muslim groups, politicians, a television channel and a Scotland Yard unit of sharing the ideology of terrorists.
The list was drawn up for Charles Farr, the director general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), a directorate of the Home Office. Farr is a former senior intelligence officer.
It was sent to him in June by the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism thinktank which has received about £1m in government funding.
Quilliam was co-founded by Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz, former activists in the radical Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir. Critics of the foundation accused it of McCarthyite smear tactics and branded its claims ridiculous. The foundation declined repeated requests for comment.
The document sent to Farr is entitled "Preventing terrorism; where next for Britain?" It lists alleged extremist sympathisers, including the Muslim Council of Britain, the main umbrella group in Britain for Islamic organisations. It also claims that a Scotland Yard counter-terrorism squad called the Muslim Contact Unit is dominated by extremist ideology.
Other groups include the Muslim Safety Forum, which works with the police to improve community relations, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, and even the Islam Channel, which provides television programmes for Muslims on satellite.
The briefing document says: "The ideology of non-violent Islamists is broadly the same as that of violent Islamists; they disagree only on tactics.
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