Muslim bookshop considering legal action against think tank

7:37am Friday 14th December 2007

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A HIGH Wycombe bookshop, which became the centre of a controversy about extremist Muslim literature, has said it may take legal action against the political think tank who threw it into the spotlight following a BBC investigation.

The Muslim Education Centre in Totteridge Drive was mentioned on Wednesday's Newsnight after it was included in the report The Hijacking of British Islam - How extremist literature is subverting mosques in the UK, published by Tory think tank Policy Exchange in October.

The document said seven books containing extremist material were found at the education centre by Policy Exchange researchers.

But the BBC team say they have uncovered evidence showing some of the receipts for the books said to have been bought by the think tank's researchers around the country were forged.

Newsnight investigators claim five out of the 25 receipts gathered from mosques and other centres by the think tank, and then supplied to the show, were forged.

This included a receipt from the education centre and during the show it was claimed it had been produced at the same time as one taken from a mosque in Parsons Green, London - 40 miles away.

But the think tank has hit out at the claims and in a statement on its website it said: "Contrary to the programme's claims, when Newsnight raised concerns about some of the receipts, Policy Exchange facilitated discussions between Newsnight and two of our researchers."

It also says it acted in good faith at all times with the BBC by volunteering the receipts it collected after an exclusive deal was negotiated with Newsnight in mid-October on the release of the report.

Both Policy Exchange and the BBC say they stand by their reports.

Mohammed Khaliel, spokesman for the centre, who appeared on Wednesday's show, said Newsnight's evidence made him doubt researchers had even visited the shop to try and buy the inflammatory books.

But when the BBC visited the shop it did find one of the seven titles on its shelves. Mr Khaliel, however said it was an "open circulation book" and could be bought anywhere.

He added: "We're going through our all our records because we don't believe we were stocking the books they say we were."

Commenting on Newsnight's report Mr Khaliel said: "It shows our honest position compared to their (Policy Exchange) forged and dishonest stance in that we haven't touched anything in the book shop. The books are the same as they were before and people are allowed to buy balanced material by balanced authors."

"We're going to hold a series of emergency meetings with other centres that were effected and look at possibly taking legal action against Policy Exchange," he added.

The think tank maintains that during a year-long investigation researchers were able to obtain extremist material, some of it anti-Semitic, misogynistic, separatist and homophobic, from a quarter of the 100 mosques and other institutions they visited. Its statement added the report's findings do not rely on receipts, but instead on the testimony of the research team.

The think tank's executive was due to meet yesterday to discuss legal action against the BBC.

Peter Barron, Newsnight editor, said he decided not to run the original report negotiated with Policy Exchange because of the discrepancies he says were uncovered. His decision was not made because he "bottled it" as suggested on the show.

Wycombe MP Paul Goodman, who supported the centre in the wake of the terror raids last year, said: "I note that the Muslim education centre hasn't denied to date that the material which Policy Exchange claims to have purchased at the centre is purchasable there.

"None the less, it would clearly be a very serious matter were Policy Exchange's researchers indeed to have forged or fabricated receipts relating to the report.

"I've therefore written today to Policy Exchange in order to ask them definitively to rebut both Newsnight's and Khaliel's claims in relation both to the report generally and the Muslim education centre in particular."