Universities UK headquarters hosted Islamic extremist group, despite national student union ban

A radical Islamist group which the Government has threatened to ban was invited to give a talk at the headquarters of Universities UK, The Telegraph has learned.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Salafi movement which is proscribed in parts of Europe and much of the Middle East, has called for the establishment of a caliphate and the introduction of Shari’ah law throughout the Islamic world.

It has been “no platformed” by the National Union of Students and a number of universities have cancelled events after learning that  Hizb ut-Tahrir speakers were due to attend.

Universities UK is the ‘Voice of Universities’ in the UK. Its London office is in Tavistock Square. At an event for university vice-Chancellors, Jamal Harwood of Hizb ut-Tahrir was billed as a headline speaker. He is Canadian born, a convert, who considers himself British. His field is Islamic economics, and the superiority of the Kaliphate. He was allowed to speak at the University of Westminster in 2012. 

Earlier this year he also spoke at another Universities UK venue, the Woburn House Conference Centre on the subject “Is the Caliphate a viable alternative for the Middle East?” 

All speaker events at universities are supposed to follow government Prevent Policy guidance and Hannah Stuart, co-head of the security and extremism unit at Policy Exchange, said it is “astonishing” that Universities UK hosted an event featuring Hizb ut-Tahrir on its own premises.?

However UUK say that Woburn house was hired by an outside organisation, for what they described as a ‘Great Debate’. had they known that a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir was to speak they would not have permittted it; they were misled by the organisers and they wil not be doing business with them (whoever they are) again.