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Crackdown on extremism

LONDON: British Government has launched a crackdown against Islamist extremism on university campuses with instructions to Vice-Chancellors to monitor students for signs of extremist behaviour and report them to the police.

They were also told to vet external speakers invited by student groups, and ban those who are likely to promote hatred.

Information about such speakers should be shared with other institutions, said the government hinting at the idea of a national blacklist of preachers of hate.

In a tough message that universities would not be allowed to become religious ghettos, the government made clear that Muslim students had no right to demand special treatment such as separate prayer rooms or washing facilities.

The guidelines, issued by Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell, followed reports that university and college campuses were becoming recruiting grounds for extremist groups but critics accused the government of forcing universities to “spy” on their students.

Mr. Rammell said the threat of violent extremism from universities was “real and serious” but not widespread.

“The Director-General of the security services said there were about 200 groups encompassing 2,000 people engaged in promoting and organising terrorist activity.”

Denying criticism that government was muzzling academic freedom, he said: “We prize academic freedom and freedom of speech as the most effective way of challenging the views which we may find abhorrent but that remain within the law.”

The document said there was no single profile of potential recruits but they were likely to be young “generally younger than 30 and male.” It warned that increasingly women were being “groomed” by extremist groups with the number of women who “support and participate in violent extremism” on the rise. Student groups said the guidelines were an improvement on the 2006 guidance that the government was forced to review after widespread criticism. But they had reservations about lecturers “spying” on students.

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