The government’s terror watchdog Max Hill QC has said it is “fundamentally wrong to attach the word ‘terrorism’ to any of the world religions”.
Mr. Hill, who is tasked with reviewing the country’s terror laws, then advised that acts of terror committed by Muslims inspired by Islam should instead be referred to as “Daesh-inspired terrorism” during Parliament’s joint committee on human rights on Wednesday.
This is despite a section of Mr. Hill’s own report referring to “threats from Islamist terrorism”.
The comments came in response to a question from Labour MP Karen Buck which referenced a focus on “Daesh and Daesh-inspired terrorism”:
“You are extremely accurate — and more accurate than many — in using ‘Daesh-inspired terrorism’ where many other commentators use ‘Islamist terrorism’,” Hill said.
“It is fundamentally wrong to attach the word ‘terrorism’ to any of the world religions,” he continued. “Put that another way around: those who adhere to any of the great religions or none can be terrorists within the Section 1 definition.”
As well as voicing his opinion that radical Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, the QC plays the Islamic theologian by writing in his report that “What [Islamic terrorists] claim to do in the name of religion is actually born from an absence of real understanding about the nature of the religion they claim to follow.”
This statement is at odds with the findings of an extensive study by Islamic theologian and University of Vienna professor Ednan Aslan, commissioned by the Austrian ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Professor Aslan found that jihadists do, in fact, tend to have deep knowledge of Islam and Islamic theology.
Max Hill previously courted controversy when, in October 2017, he said that returning British citizens who fought for Islamic State in the Middle East should be given “space” to reintegrate and that many terrorists “travelled out of a sense of naivety”.
He was also condemned for seeking to meet with Islamic terror apologist group CAGE, which had called the Islamic State executioner and propagandist Jihadi John a “beautiful young man”.
The counterterrorism regulator did not meet with the Islamic extremist group, in the end, but he did meet with the “anti-Islamophobia” group Mend, which engages with CAGE, and the anti-Israel Friends of Al Aqsa — which has defended Palestinian terror group Hamas — during the “community engagement roundtables” for his report.
Henry Jackson Society research fellow Emma Webb told The Sun that “The number of Islamists consulted is completely disproportionate and counter-productive.”
“The Islamist-linked groups consulted by Max Hill QC had a vested interest in calling for these attacks to be disassociated with their ideology,” Ms. Webb told the newspaper.
“There is now no doubt that the independent reviewer has been influenced heavily by his consultation roundtables with these groups.
“Not only is he parroting the Islamists’ line, he is going beyond the remit of his role as reviewer of terror legislation.
“The proposal to alter the way we name Islamist terrorism is ill-conceived and would limit our ability to accurately describe the phenomenon, which falls into the same bracket as racism and fascism, and is not merely ‘Daesh or Al-Qaeda inspired’.”
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