Mick Hartley

The National Secular Society on the “uncritical and deferential” attitudes towards religious groups which leaves pupils potentially exposed to harm.

A London mosque accused of promoting “antisemitic hate” days after the October 7 attacks has hosted primary school pupils on a school trip and supplied guest speakers at two other schools, the National Secular Society has learned.

Representatives from Greenwich Islamic Centre (GIC) visited two primary schools in Greenwich last March and this April, with Year 5 pupils from another school in Kent visiting the mosque in March 2024.

The visits took place despite a sermon delivered at GIC on 20 October 2023 – just 13 days after the 7 October attacks in Israel by Hamas – in which imam Muhammad Abdullah Shakir called on Allah to “protect Al Aqsa [mosque] from the Jews”, to “curse the infidels” and “destroy their land”.

Shakir’s remarks were widely reported in the press at the time, with local MP Matthew Pennycook describing them as “anti-Semitic hate” on X. Local councillors also denounced the comments in “the strongest possible terms”.

But the school wasn’t bothered.

One of the schools proceeded with its visit to GIC despite having an ‘Educational Visits Policy’ requiring that a “thorough risk assessment” be conducted when planning trips and that the school board ensures any trip “does not discriminate against a particular individual, group of pupils or single school”.

Apart from Jews, obviously. But Jews don’t count.