08 April 2019

Report slams council for "appearing to have wilfully ignored extremist activity"

A former counter-extremism co-ordinator for Waltham Forest Council is writing a national report that singles the borough out as having a “grim history of extremism and terrorism”.

The Guardian has been granted exclusive access to extracts of the report, which also covers Cardiff, Birmingham and Glasgow and is not yet published.

The report highlights incidents in Waltham Forest including a prominent Islamist being given an award by the council and collection boxes in high street stores for groups advocating extremist ideologies.

.... According to Ms Littlewood’s report, an ongoing issue in the borough is the area’s links to other Pakistani Islamist groups promoting extreme views.

Currently, a number of high street stores in Leyton have been found to have collection boxes on their till counters to raise money for Dalwat-e-Islami and Madani.

Dalwat-e-Islami are a non-political, religious group in Pakistan and extremists from their group shared posts on Facebook praising the man responsible for the murder of Ahmadi-Muslim Asad Shah in Glasgow in 2016. [East London & west Essex Guardian] Read more