Extremist organizations are operating on university campuses across the UK and pose a serious threat to national security, according to a new report.
The education secretary for England and Wales, Ruth Kelly, on Thursday ordered university vice chancellors to clamp down on student extremists in the wake of the July terror attacks in London.
But a report to be published next week by Anthony Glees, the director of the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at Brunel University, England, lists more than 30 institutions -- including some of the most high-profile universities in Britain -- where "extremist and/or terror groups" have been detected.
"This is a serious threat," Glees said. "We have discovered a number of universities where subversive activities are taking place, often without the knowledge of the university authorities."
The study states that the Islamist groups Hizb ut-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun, which are subject to a "no-platform policy" by the National Union of Students, are active on many campuses and often operate under different names. The report catalogues the activities of far-right organizations and animal-rights extremists.
Among universities named are Cambridge, where the British National Party was detected; Oxford, where the report said animal-rights extremists were active; and the London School of Economics and Manchester University, which had active Islamist extremist groups.
Glees said personal tutors often had no idea about their students' views and that many undergraduates spent very little time in lectures or tutorials.
"It is in this environment that these groups can flourish without being detected," he said.
But Wakkas Khan, from the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, said that although there were individual members of Hizb ut-Tahrir at many British universities, they were not organized as a group and did not pose a threat.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing