Police called in after Scout group run from mosque is linked to Islamic extremist and Holocaust denier

From the Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday

A scout group run from a mosque is being investigated by police after a Telegraph investigation linked it to an Islamic extremist and a man associated with Holocaust denial.

The Scout Association raised the alarm after the Telegraph found the Lewisham Islamic Centre had been segregating groups by gender, despite the Scout’s own commitment to mixed-sex groups.

The investigation also found girls as young as five in the group have been encouraged to record videos advocating wearing the hijab and that contrary to the Scouts own commitment to ‘British Values’, the group’s leader Ahammed Hussain has admitted to encouraging the members to be ‘Muslims first’.

Hussain was on Friday night suspended by the Scouts pending an investigation into the allegations uncovered by the Telegraph and the group was reported to the Metropolitan Police over safeguarding concerns.

Back in December, the new chief ambassador for the global scouts movement – Bear Grylls – said the scouts can lead the fight against extremism by recruiting young Muslims in the UK.  ‘We have hundreds of mosques every week, reaching out, asking, ‘Can we start up groups?’ 

Contrary to the Scouts leading the fight against extremism, court records between 2010 and 2014 reveal that the mosque invited Bilal Philips and Haitham al-Haddad to speak at the mosque. 

The first was described by the US government as a co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombings. He wasn’t able to complete his address due to being banned from the UK in 2010. The latter, al-Haddad, has advocated female genital mutilation (he told me that ‘mutilation’ is wrong, but ‘circumcision’ done correctly was a blessing) and denounced homosexuality as a ‘criminal’ act.