Muslim plan to tackle extremists

Potential terrorists should be sent to rehabilitation centres and deradicalised by exposure to intense and substantial periods of genuine piety, Britain’s first counter-extremism thinktank said yesterday.

The recommendation came from the Quilliam Foundation, established by former activists of radical Islamist groups to challenge their ideology.

At its launch at the British Museum in London, the deputy director and author, Ed Husain, who used to be in the radical group Hizb ut-Tahrir, said there was a sense of Muslim unity in the fight “to rescue our faith from those who have hijacked it”.

The foundation’s inaugural policy document suggests identifying potential terrorists, with support from family members and visitors to mosques, and exposing them - “hopefully voluntarily” - to genuine religiosity through mainstream imams.

Another tactic is to encourage students to wear clothing suitable for mainstream society and not “Pakistani ethnic attire suitable for a different climate”.

• Religion reports in The Guardian

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