Blueprint's Discovery Fuels UK "Trojan Horse" Concerns

While British officials investigate an alleged "Trojan Horse" plot to replace state school leaders with people sympathetic to Islamist ideology, the Telegraph reports that a 2007 blueprint "closely resembles what appears to be happening in Birmingham."

The 72-page document was published online by the Muslim Council of Britain, reports Telegraph London Editor Andrew Gilligan.

It was co-authored by Tahir Alam, chairman of governors at Birmingham's Park View school. The document called for "girls [to] be covered except for their hands and faces." Alam has also promoted gender segregation in some school activities and slammed a "multicultural approach" to collective worship.

Secular UK schools must "take account of Muslim sensitivities and sensibilities with respect to sexual morality," the document says, with "girlfriend/boyfriend as well as homosexual relationships" considered "not acceptable practices according to Islamic teachings."

Park View teachers revealed that a boy and girl have been suspended after being caught holding hands, weeks before their exams. "They have done this to quite a few students in Year 11," a faculty member told Gilligan.

The document also said that schools should not teach "potential harmful forms of music" which "promote immoral behaviour" or include "unethical and un-Islamic lyrics."

The Telegraph also obtained a Department foe Education inspection report, which said that girls at Park View were forced to sit at the back of class.

The investigations were prompted by a letter which surfaced in March, detailing a plot to take over the schools by driving out existing administrators and replacing them with people who supported the plot to instill strict Islamic ideology.

While some have cast the letter as a hoax – Alam dismissed the allegations as "Islamophobic" and a "witch-hunt" – the blueprint reinforces critics' concerns.

"Mr. Alam … has been planning this for 15 years," Birmingham Labour MP Khalid Mahmoud said about the new disclosure. "He goes around making these schools religious by manipulating governors, and bringing in certain teachers. He was able to hone the [tactics] in Birmingham that he drafted in this report."

Radicalization is already evident at Park View. A former staff member told the Telegraph that another staff member put up posters in the school hallways with the message: "If you do not pray, you are worse than a kafir" a derogatory term for non-Muslims.

Related Topics: IPT News, Operation Trojan Horse, Andrew Gilligan, Tahir Alam

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