UK media is reporting that an Islamic student society from a major London university promoted a video claiming the Woolwich killing was a government hoax. According to a London Evening Standard report:
A major London university’s Islamic society promoted a video that claimed the Woolwich killing was a Government hoax, the Evening Standard can reveal.
Hours after Lee Rigby, 25, was stabbed to death, a Muslim student group at London Metropolitan University circulated a six-minute clip casting doubt on whether the soldier had even died.
The video — ‘Woolwich false flag bullshit. Masses are in a state-sponsored trance’ — claimed the crime scene was covered in ‘fake blood’ and accused the investigating officers of being freemasons.
The day after Drummer Rigby’s death, members of the LMU Islamic Society also posted another video on its Facebook page that promoted a speech by an extremist preacher who has reportedly praised the Taliban and labelled non-Muslims as ‘evil’.
The disclosures have raised new fears that London’s universities are being targeted by extremists.
Rupert Sutton, of anti-extremism think-tank Student Rights, said: ‘That a video like this was shared by students the day after a soldier was killed like that on London’s streets is deeply concerning, and highlights the ease with which social media allows material like this to be accessed.
‘We’ve seen in the past how students can be led towards violence by online material, and for this reason university authorities should be increasingly aware of this kind of activity.’
The video about Lee Rigby’s killing, which has been viewed by almost 300,000 people on YouTube, was uploaded to the Islamic society’s Facebook page on May 23. An editor added appalling subtitles to the now-infamous clip of the terror suspects before police arrived at the scene. The video showed one of the terror suspects Michael Adebolajo with added subtitles asking: ‘Where is the blood on his hands that is seen on most of the other videos?’
Read the rest here.
A post from May 2013 reported on a new study showing that a large number of events promoted by UK student Islamic societies featured individuals with a “history of extreme or intolerant views.”
The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) is an umbrella grouping of most major university Islamic societies in the U.K. A 2008 report by the Center for Social Cohesion outlined the ties of FOSIS to the Muslim Brotherhood and concluded that ISCC’s (campus Islamic societies) and FOSIS members are more likely to hold intolerant views:
Significant minorities of Muslim students – and particularly younger ones – support violence in the name of Islam, endorse punishing Muslim apostates “in accordance with the Sharia” and believe that men and women are not equal in the eyes of Allah and should not be treated equally. Comparable minorities, around 10 percent of Muslim students, also have little or no respect for Jews, atheists or homosexuals and support Islamist proposals such as re-creating the Caliphate, introducing Sharia law to Britain and establishing an Islamic political party. Sizable numbers, between 20 and 30 percent of Muslim students, also hold intolerant attitudes towards minority forms of Islam such as Shi’ism and Sufism. The report additionally suggests that active members of Islamic Societies are more likely than other Muslim students to hold such intolerant views
Read there rest here.
In April, the Telegraph reported on extremist and terrorist speakers hosted by FOSIS:
FOSIS has hosted numerous extremist and terrorist speakers at its annual conference and other events, including Azzam Tamimi, who supports suicide bombing, Haitham al-Haddad, who believes that music is a “prohibited and fake message of love and peace”, and Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda recruiter described as a key inspiration for three of the 9/11 hijackers and numerous later attacks. Several convicted terrorists have been officers of university Islamic societies affiliated to FOSIS and have attended its events.
An earlier post reported that Baroness Warsi, the minister for faith and communities, had spoken in March at a FOSIS been organized to attack what the organization calls the ‘demonisation’ of Muslim students by the media.