Rolled-up Trousers: Centre for Social Cohesion exposed

Rolled-up Trousers: Centre for Social Cohesion

Osama Saeed, who recently helped to establish the Scottish-Islamic Foundation, replies to accusations from the likes of the "Centre for Social Cohesion" that they are some sort of Islamist "front" with links to all sorts of people:

At the same time, we were baffled by a briefing put out by the gloriously named 'Centre for Social Cohesion' warning people against us. They don't have as wide a remit as their name suggests, a quick scan of their website shows almost everything is on the topic of Islam and Muslims, and very few escape their wrath.

Their "research" was in reality nothing more than a quick Google job, and a negatively screened one at that. The tactic of these kind of hatchet jobs which emanate from London is to smear by association. Attaching Muslims with someone controversial is like the "six steps to Kevin Bacon" test. It's a modern day McCarthyism.

We could disavow the A-Z of Muslim groups that are blacklisted, and one or two groups in London have gained celebrity criticising other Muslims on the drop of a hat in a game that never ends. They as a result have no friends, while we're committed to working with our community in improving things wherever necessary. If there's criminality involved, then let the police deal with it, but there's not a hint of that.

These kinds of hatchet jobs, although those in the UK tend to emanate from London, seem to have their origins in the USA, where guilt-by-association smears are a routine tactic of certain pro-Israel agitators.