Extreme dilemmas facing students

By Dominic Casciani and Jon Kelly
BBC News

Ministers fear that students are being lured into supporting terror

University staff have been urged by the government to challenge groups which promote terrorism on campuses.

But when it comes to dealing with the issue, where does legitimate free speech end and dangerous extremism begin?

The phrase "student radical" may once have conjured up images of long-haired leftists staging demonstrations and sit-ins.

But now it is more likely to provoke fears of Islamist extremists recruiting potential terrorists among lonely young people away from home for the first time.

New guidelines issued by the government say academics should be alert to the "serious but not widespread" threat of Islamic extremism.

'Violence and destruction'

Dr Tahir Abbas of Birmingham University has been awarded a government grant to research radicalisation on campuses.

Where do you draw the line between free speech and incitement? Faisal Hanjra Federation of Student Islamic Societies

He stresses that there is very little in the way of hard evidence about the extent of the problem, and that it is important not to stifle free speech in the name of preventing terrorism.

"Student radicalism is a tradition in this country and is not confined to Muslims," he said. "We should be encouraging young people to develop their free thinking and break taboos."

But a line is crossed, he says, when groups preach "anything that alludes to violence and destruction".

British undergraduates have, after all, found themselves in the ranks of terrorists in the past.

In July 2007, four Bradford University students and a schoolboy who planned to fight British soldiers and die as martyrs were each sentenced at the Old Bailey to between two and three years' detention.

According to Judge Peter Beaumont, the group - whose youngest member, Mohammed Irfan Raja, was 19 - had all been "intoxicated" by extremist literature.

Faisal Hanjra of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies says that campus Muslim groups were alert to the threat of extremism, but that reports in 2006 that lecturers would be asked to spy on students had caused a "huge amount of damage on university campuses".

"We are being vigilant so that when we do see evidence of extremism it is tackled, and people have channels of communication so they can report their concerns.

"The question is, where do you draw the line between free speech and incitement?"

'Out of context'

Part of the problem, say experts, is that taking on extremist groups is an exceptionally difficult exercise.

Take, for instance, the history of Al Muhajiroun, the now banned radical group headed by preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed.

ALM was sophisticated enough at the height of its agitation to start deploying front names. One study found it had come up with 50 aliases or fronts by 2002.

Given that some of the issues raised by ALM are exactly the same as those raised by other mainstream Muslim bodies, the job of distinguishing between the potentially dangerous and the legitimate becomes a lot harder.

One of the Islamist groups that has been most active among British students is Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). The international organisation calls for an Islamic political state across the Muslim world and has faced a National Union of Students attempt to deny it a platform on campuses.

Mohammed Irfan Raja planned to wage jihad

Former prime minister Tony Blair proposed banning HT but it remains legal.

Taji Mustafa of HT says that he fears legitimate political protest over issues such as foreign policy towards the Middle East is in danger of being silenced.

"You have to look at this alongside recent laws which are leading to people being convicted of possessing books or for saying things that are being taken out of context," Mr Mustafa said.

"What is extremism? What is radicalism? These are vague terms that are up in the air. A lot of people feel these policies are about silencing dissent and critical voices."

But the organisation's critics say the campus activities of organisations like HT can be legitimately seen as part of a conveyor belt to terrorism.

They argue that Islamist activism like this radicalises young Muslims - and some of them can be shown to have gone on to violence.

Maajid Nawaz is a former leader of HT and the founding director of the Quilliam Foundation, a newly established think tank to counter extreme ideology.

Mr Nawaz says banning organisations from campuses and encouraging informing would be counter-productive because it could create a "McCarthyite" atmosphere.

He became involved in Islamist politics as a teenager. He was later jailed Egypt, during which time he started to question his involvement with the organisation and study his religious texts.

He welcomes the government's revised guidance.

Mr Nawaz argues this strategy protects freedom of speech, particularly around foreign policy issues regularly debated by many Muslim students.

"Lecturers should not be informing and I have sympathy now with what the government is trying to do by encouraging education [in religious ideas] and civil society, rather than informing or banning," he said.

"On university, you should not allow [extremists] to hire rooms, just like you would not allow a platform to the British National Party."

But with groups such as the BNP also active in universities, Ruqayyah Collector of the National Union of Students believes the guidelines focus disproportionately on Islamic groups at the expense of other extremists.

"This risks encouraging universities to treat Muslims with suspicion, creating a climate of fear around one particular group of students," she says.

It appears the line between extremism and free expression is still being drawn.