Home Office to foster relations with Muslim community
The Home Office will hold a series of meetings with Muslim leaders across the country over the summer, in an attempt to foster relations in the wake of the London bomb attacks.
A spokeswoman for the department confirmed that Home Office minister Hazel Blears will attend meetings with Muslim leaders in eight towns and cities in the UK over the next month to discuss the “shared challenges” facing the government and the Muslim community.
Ms Blears has written to MPs with details of the meetings, with invitations to attend the forums also to be extended to members of other faith communities, the police and local authorities.
Commenting on Ms Blears’ appeal to local MPs representing Muslim communities, the Home Office spokeswoman said: “In her letter she will be asking them to take soundings from their community on how to tackle the key issues and ask them to write to her with their findings.”
Meetings with members of the Muslim community will culminate in “concrete proposals” which will be discussed during a “major roundtable talk” between home secretary Charles Clarke and Muslim leaders on September 20, the spokeswoman added.
The first meeting Ms Blears and junior Home Office minister Paul Goggins will hold with Muslim leaders will take place in the North West, but the Press Association reports that the government has declined to divulge the location of the talks for “security reasons.”
Meanwhile, a radical Islamic political party has urged Muslims to continue speaking out against British foreign policy.
Hizb ut Tahrir, which has been banned from several countries, will warn delegates at a London conference on Sunday to resist attempts to divide Muslims into “moderates and extremists.”
Spokesman Dr Imran Waheed, who insists the party is a non-violent organisation campaigning for Islamic government across the Muslim world, said: “Speaking out about western foreign policy is legitimate political expression. It’s not extremism and it’s not terrorism.”
