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Posted by: kwflatbed

By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press Writer


LONDON --
British police have offered to train university staff to spot extremists operating on campus, despite complaints from Muslim students they are unfairly targeted in drives to root out radicals, a government document said Tuesday.
Lecturers have been urged to scrutinize both students and invited speakers for signs they could be involved in radicalizing young people, according to new government guidelines.
Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, published advice to universities Tuesday on tackling extremism, requesting institutions share information on suspected extremist speakers.
"There is a real and serious threat, and we must all take responsibility for protecting ourselves," Rammell said.
He said al-Qaida-influenced terrorism was the government's primary concern, but warned schools of the threat posed by extremist far-right groups, animal-rights activists and anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic speakers.
Rammell said he believed that some controversial speakers should be allowed to appear at universities - to allow moderate academics to debunk their claims through rational argument.
"We prize academic freedom and freedom of speech as ends in themselves and as the most effective way of challenging the views which we may find abhorrent but that remain within the law," he said.
But staff should compile details of speakers they fear may be exhorting students to violence - even in meetings held off campus - and share their concerns with counterparts, he said.
The guideline document also said that police can offer training to assist universities "to recognize and respond to potential violent extremism."
British government security officials said Tuesday that radicalization is now much less likely to take place in mosques or formal settings, but instead in homes, gyms or at campus fringe meetings.
Jonathan Evans, head of domestic spy agency MI5, warned in November that there is evidence extremists are grooming children and teenagers for attacks against Britain.
But some students and staff have claimed Rammell's guidelines could lead to the victimization of Muslim students.
"There is no evidence to suggest that Muslim students at university are particularly vulnerable to radicalization, nor is there any evidence to suggest that university campuses are hotbeds of extremist activity," said Faisal Hanjra, of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the academic labor organization University and College Union said university staff should not be expected to police their students.
"No student should ever think they are being spied on and no staff member should ever be pressurized into treating any group of students differently from another," she said.


Wire Service

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