Jihadi John’s University has hosted Radical Islamist Activity for Over a Decade
We started this week with an agenda-setting new policy paper warning how bogus charities were funding terrorism. We might have expected that, such is the news cycle, this story would soon be eclipsed. It would have been harder to predict that we would be the ones responsible for this shift. But such is the quality and foresight of our work that this now occurs with increasing frequency.
When news broke that Islamic State murderer ‘Jihadi John’ had been identified as British passport-holder Mohammed Emwazi, already known to UK security services, we turned our attention to the place where he received his degree in computer science, the University of Westminster.
The unique research of The Henry Jackson Society’s campus extremism project, Student Rights, swiftly brought to light an alarming trend of extremism at the institution, which – once relayed to international media – dominated today’s news agenda.
Director of Student Rights, Rupert Sutton, was quick to point out that in 2007, at the same time Emwazi was attending the University of Westminster, a former student called Yassin Nassari was convicted of a terrorist offence. His past position as president of the university’s Islamic Society brought attention to the problem of extremism on campus – which he had attended six years earlier.
Since that conviction, extremist events have continued unabated. Although data for the years in which Emwazi attended isn’t available, Student Rights found that since March 2012, 22 events were held where speakers with a history of extremist views or involvement with extremist organisations were invited to speak.
The most recent extremist event was scheduled to be held on the day of Emwazi’s exposure. It was promptly postponed. The speaker, Haitham Al-Haddad, is a hate preacher who has attacked “the scourge of homosexuality”, supported the death penalty for apostates, and claimed that “a man should not be questioned why he hit his wife, because this is something between them”.
It is this in-depth knowledge and ground-breaking research that has inundated HJS with media enquiries. Appearing on BBC News this morning, Rupert Sutton urged greater scrutiny of the extremism that plagues UK campuses. Student Rights was also featured on the BBC’s main news page on the story as well as The Daily Mail and The Huffington Post. Much more is set to come this weekend.
More revelations will no doubt follow as identities of British jihadists are revealed. With your help, our extensive research and team of experts will be ready to expose to the world how others like ‘Jihadi John’ have exploited our institutions to spread their poisonous ideology.
RELATED VIDEO: The Muslim Caliphates in France
