The alleged ringleader of the Islamist ‘Trojan horse’ plot to take over a number of British schools reportedly wrote a 72-page document detailing how a takeover could occur.
The Telegraph’s Andrew Gilligan reports that Tahir Alam, who was the chairman of governors at the Park View school in Birmingham, called for “girls [to] be covered except for their hands and faces”, advocated gender segregation in some school activities, and attacked a “multicultural approach” to collective worship.
Gilligan writes:
The so-called Trojan Horse plot involves the alleged takeover of secular state schools and the removal of secular head teachers in Birmingham by radical Muslim staff and governors. Five non-Muslim heads have left their posts in a tiny area of the city over the past six months. Twenty-five Birmingham schools are being investigated by the council and 18 have already been inspected by Ofsted of which at least six, including Park View, will be rated “inadequate” for leadership and management.
A separate inspection report by the DfE, leaked to The Telegraph, found that girls at Park View were made to sit at the back of the class, GCSE syllabuses were “restricted to comply with a conservative Islamic teaching” and an extremist preacher was invited to speak to children.
In his 72-page document, published by the Muslim Council of Britain in 2007, Mr Alam and his co-author, Muhammad Abdul Bari, attacked many state schools for not being “receptive of legitimate and reasonable requests made by Muslim parents and pupils in relation to their faith-based aspirations and concerns.”
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Mr Alam’s document says that aspects of the Nat-ional Curri-culum, such as dance, should be ignored as “not consistent with the Islamic requirements for modesty”. It adds that “dance performances before a mixed-gender audience may be objectionable”.
Schools should “try to avoid scheduling swimming lessons during Ramadan”, the document says, to avoid Muslim pupils accidentally swallowing water and breaking their fast. “School balls, discos and fashion shows that might inadvertently exclude pupils from the Islamic faith background” should be avoided, it adds.
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Further evidence has emerged of radicalisation at Park View. Speaking to The Telegraph, a former member of staff said that a “member of staff” at the school last year put up posters in the corridors with the message: “If you do not pray, you are worse than a kafir” an insulting term for non-Muslims. “Those were the exact words”, the former staff member said. “Many staff, including some of the Muslim staff, complained and the posters were taken down.”
The plot is now under investigation by local authorities as well as the British government, with a number of MPs condemning the actions of Alam and his associates.
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