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The Free Speech Union@SpeechUnion · Feb 14, 2026

🚨EVERY MEMBER OF THE WORKING GROUP ON ISLAMOPHOBIA HAS LINKS TO ISLAMIST ORGANISATIONS. The controversial Working…

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Summary

A briefing exposes that every member of the UK's controversial Working Group on Islamophobia has alleged links to Islamist organizations, raising concerns that the group's definition of anti-Muslim hostility will restrict free speech and legitimate criticism of Islam and extremism. The group operated in secrecy and its definition, now rebranded as "anti-Muslim hostility," is criticized for potentially silencing discussion of issues like grooming gangs and Islamic extremism.

Summarized by ThreadOut AI from the full thread. May miss nuance — read the thread below.

  1. #1

    🚨EVERY MEMBER OF THE WORKING GROUP ON ISLAMOPHOBIA HAS LINKS TO ISLAMIST ORGANISATIONS. The controversial Working Group tasked with drafting an official definition of Islamophobia operated in secrecy. This definition — now rebranded as “anti-Muslim hostility” — will have a chilling effect on free speech. It will silence legitimate criticism of Islam and its practices, and deter open discussion of serious public concerns, including the grooming gangs scandal and Islamist extremism. So who is behind Britain’s new Muslim blasphemy law? FSU Director of Policy and Research @DavidRoseUK has published a new briefing exposing the Working Group’s members and their links to Islamists. A thread 🧵

  2. #2

    1️⃣ Dominic Grieve, the group’s Chair and a former Conservative Attorney-General, apparently decided to support the controversial 2018 All-Party Parliamentary Group definition of Islamophobia as “a form of racism” after seeking advice from MCB and MEND leaders when he chaired a Citizen’s Commission on Muslims in 2017.

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    2️⃣ Asha Affi was a council candidate for George Galloway’s RespectParty in 2010, when his policy demands included support for the Iranian and former Syrian regimes and wiping out the state of Israel. She stood in the same borough where Galloway had been an MP.

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    3️⃣ Baroness Shaista Gohir has tweeted support for Hamas and wrote a report claiming it’s Islamophobic to suggest grooming gangs are disproportionately Muslim.

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    4️⃣ Akeela Ahmed has worked closely with the MCB in demanding restrictions on the reporting of Muslim affairs – and with Qari Asim, an imam sacked as an adviser by the last government because he was threatening free speech. Asim has also brought Pakistani imams who support the death penalty for blasphemy to speak in the UK.

  6. #6

    5️⃣ Javed Khan was a keynote speaker at the UK launch last September of the Muslim Impact Forum, (MIF), which has close ties to President Erdoğan’s Islamist government in Turkey. The MIF’s website features an interview with Asim Qureshi, of the terrorist prisoners’ support group CAGE, who once called the Isis killer known as ‘Jihadi John’ “a beautiful young man”. In the interview, he says he hopes to lobby the MIF to support the annihilation of the “evil” state of Israel.

  7. #7

    freespeechunion.org/anti-free-spee…