LONDON – British police have deployed Special Branch officers in universities to monitor the radicalization of students, stirring a storm of controversy.
"We have identified universities for whom the risk is greater and they have to work closely with Special Branch," Higher Education Minister David Lammy told the BBC on Thursday, February 4.
"And so I think it is a partnership between leadership at universities and the police."
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British police forces.
A Special Branch unit acquires and develops intelligence and conducts investigations to protect the State from perceived threats of subversion, particularly terrorism, and other extremist activity.
"We do not recognize a caricature of a significant risk across Britain," Lammy indicated.
"But we do recognize that threat levels have been raised and that this is an extremely serious issue and that there are particular institutions - and those institutions are aware of this because we have brought it to their attention - where the risk is greater," he maintained.
"Those institutions are working very closely with the police and are working closely with Special Branch and those institutions are present on campus."
Some linked the move to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian who tried to blow up a plane over Detroit, US, last December.
He was a student at the University College London (UCL), where he read mechanical engineering between September 2005 and June 2008.
But British concerns about campus extremism go years earlier.
In 2006, the government issued guidelines for university staff on how to combat the threat of violent extremists on campuses.
Overblown
The decision to send Special Branch officers to universities to monitor radicalization drew mixed reactions.
Prof Malcolm Grant, Provost of UCL, said universities had a responsibility to work closely with security services but "not as policemen".
"I would not ever want anybody to believe that we can be the bulwark against terrorism," he noted.
"I'm deeply concerned that there's an assumption that simply by installing simple measures of preventing, shall we say, radical speakers from coming onto campus, we're going to make a ha'p'orth of difference to this issue.
"Now let's be real about this. The influences on young minds are many and various."
Qasim Rafiq, of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis), criticized the new measures.
"There is no evidence or no substantial evidence to suggest there is a radicalization of extremism taking place on campus, as people have suggested."
He warned that students were more likely to be radicalized by watching the bombs fall on Iraq.
A recent study by a team of Cambridge researchers downplayed fears that British campuses were becoming extremism hotbeds.
The study, based on detailed interviews with students in London, Cambridge and Bradford, concluded that fears of campus extremism were very much "exaggerated" and Muslim students are more likely to join Amnesty International than Al-Qaeda.
"We have identified universities for whom the risk is greater and they have to work closely with Special Branch," Higher Education Minister David Lammy told the BBC on Thursday, February 4.
"And so I think it is a partnership between leadership at universities and the police."
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British police forces.
A Special Branch unit acquires and develops intelligence and conducts investigations to protect the State from perceived threats of subversion, particularly terrorism, and other extremist activity.
"We do not recognize a caricature of a significant risk across Britain," Lammy indicated.
"But we do recognize that threat levels have been raised and that this is an extremely serious issue and that there are particular institutions - and those institutions are aware of this because we have brought it to their attention - where the risk is greater," he maintained.
"Those institutions are working very closely with the police and are working closely with Special Branch and those institutions are present on campus."
Some linked the move to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian who tried to blow up a plane over Detroit, US, last December.
He was a student at the University College London (UCL), where he read mechanical engineering between September 2005 and June 2008.
But British concerns about campus extremism go years earlier.
In 2006, the government issued guidelines for university staff on how to combat the threat of violent extremists on campuses.
Overblown
The decision to send Special Branch officers to universities to monitor radicalization drew mixed reactions.
Prof Malcolm Grant, Provost of UCL, said universities had a responsibility to work closely with security services but "not as policemen".
"I would not ever want anybody to believe that we can be the bulwark against terrorism," he noted.
"I'm deeply concerned that there's an assumption that simply by installing simple measures of preventing, shall we say, radical speakers from coming onto campus, we're going to make a ha'p'orth of difference to this issue.
"Now let's be real about this. The influences on young minds are many and various."
Qasim Rafiq, of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis), criticized the new measures.
"There is no evidence or no substantial evidence to suggest there is a radicalization of extremism taking place on campus, as people have suggested."
He warned that students were more likely to be radicalized by watching the bombs fall on Iraq.
A recent study by a team of Cambridge researchers downplayed fears that British campuses were becoming extremism hotbeds.
The study, based on detailed interviews with students in London, Cambridge and Bradford, concluded that fears of campus extremism were very much "exaggerated" and Muslim students are more likely to join Amnesty International than Al-Qaeda.
