BySimon Rocker, Simon Rocker
Haringey Council has suspended funding to an Islamic primary school whose backers have been linked to the radical group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HUT).
The Islamic Shaksiyah Foundation, which runs schools in Tottenham, north London, and in Slough, received £113,411 of government educational grants in 2007/8, according to a report from the Centre for Social Cohesion due out this week.
It named ISF trustees Farah Ahmed and Yusra Hamilton as members of HUT, a group which Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said he would ban.
A Haringey spokesman said: “We have launched an investigation which will report swiftly and have suspended funding pending that outcome.”
A spokesman for HUT responded; “We do not run the Islamic Shaksiyah Foundation or any other school, and have never run any school. We do not, and have never, received any form of government funding. It is well known that Hizb ut-Tahrir never accepts any funding from any government.”
Mrs Hamilton is married to HUT executive member Taji Mustafa. In September, Mr Mustafa, urging the liberation of Palestine at a London rally, asked: “Will we die for that?”
ISF said it was a “completely independent” body not influenced by any other organisation.