Monitor all our mosques, says Black Country Muslim leader
Every mosque in Britain should be monitored to stop extremists 'poisoning' young people's minds, a Muslim leader from the Black Country has said.
Muhammad Yaseen Khan said children were being targeted by extremists on the internet and were being given the 'wrong' message in mosques.
His comments come amid a nationwide campaign, backed by West Midlands Police, after 22 girls were reported missing and feared to have joined jihadists in the so-called Islamic State (Isis) in Syria.
Mr Khan declared British followers of Islam were not true Muslims if they were not loyal to their country.
The president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, which runs the Bait-Ul-Ata Mosque on Wolverhampton's Willenhall Road, said a 'lack of leadership' in the Muslim world was to blame.
"Friday sermons should be monitored by the Home Office," he said. "Any church in the UK would welcome people in on Sunday mornings. We should all be delivering a message of peace.
"If you go to a mosque you should be welcome, as you would be at ours. If there's nothing to hide there should be nothing wrong with someone from the Home Office being there."
He said: "This country is very gracious. It has given people the right to stay. But there are mullahs who have come here and brought a poisonous ideology with them.
"And now they are openly propagating that ideology which is so damaging to our youngsters.
"They are taking the benefits and facilities provided by this country to do harm."
Although other Muslim leaders stopped short of saying the Home Office should actively monitor all mosques, Imam Ghulam Rasool of the Kanzul Iman Central Jamia Mosque in Tipton said his building was open to anyone who wanted to see for themselves what goes on.
And he said Muslim leaders were 'baffled' by the decisions of young girls to leave Britain and become 'jihadi brides'.
He said: "We cannot understand why anyone would want to leave a country with a National Health Service and law and order.
"I'd say in 99.9 per cent of mosques there is never anything said from the pulpit in or classrooms that would cause controversy. We're open to anyone. No-one needs permission to visit." The mosque was attacked in 2013 by a nail bomb planted by racist Pavlo Lapshyn, who also targeted the Aisha Mosque and Islamic Centre in Rutter Street, Caldmore, and Wolverhampton Mosque in Waterloo Road, after murdering 82-year-old Mohammed Saleem in Birmingham.
Plans for an £8 million new mosque and education centre in Dudley have also proved controversial, with a protest by the English Defence League.
The Dudley Muslim Association invited the community in to view the plans.
West Midlands Police have joined a nationwide campaign to stop young people going to Syria.
At least 22 females have been reported missing by anxious families who fear they have gone to the country over the past year.
London schoolgirls Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, travelled from London to Turkey last month.
Walsall North MP David Winnick said in the Commons: "We need to probe further, even though the numbers are very small, and ask why it is that young people should wish to join a group motivated by mass murder, savage beatings, beheadings and sex slavery? More needs to be done to find the reasons that such youngsters, born and educated in this country, should wish to travel."
Mr Khan said: "What young people considering joining the likes of Isis have have to ask themselves is 'what have they done for the girls from London'?
"These fanatics are the type of people who, if a young girl refuses to marry a soldier, they will put her in the firing line.
"That is not Islam. That is not the behaviour of any civilised society."
