The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has responded to David Cameron’s Conservative Party Conference speech in which he made a number of allegations against Islamic supplementary schools. They have pointed to the lack of evidence that schools are preaching hate or isolation.
“…We are concerned at the Prime Minister’s targeting of the supplementary schools. It is neither Islamic, nor prevalent in madrasahs to be isolationist or to preach hate of other faiths. We would hope that these serious allegations can be substantiated and the evidence brought forward, so that appropriate action can be taken.
Mosques and Muslim religious groups up and down the country tirelessly engage in inter-faith, civic coalitions to make our society better and repeatedly remind Muslim children and adults that we have a religious duty to act for the common good of society.
We recognise that there is room for improvement as many of these establishments are under-resourced, understaffed and are often not properly trained and supported. In that regard, we welcome the government’s interest to support them in these provisions. In our view, that should be done through an approach built on mutual trust, respect and cooperation which includes respect for their independence. A securitised approach to address these issues will only create mistrust and feed into grievance narrative that our PM is evidently so eager to avoid.”