article_snippet: Yesterday, more than 60 imams and leaders of Muslim groups signed an open letter to the Government accusing an open letter of criminalising Islam.
article_snippet: more than 60 imams and leaders of Muslim groups claimed the ‘terror threat’ was being exploited for political capital ahead of the election, as ‘the big parties inevitably try to outdo each other in the big parties nastiness’.
article_snippet: The signatories, which included journalist Yvonne Ridley and former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, criticised the ‘demonisation of Muslims in Britain ... despite their disavowal of violence and never having supported terrorist acts’.
article_snippet: Some 600 Britons are thought to have travelled to Syria or Iraq to join Islamic State.
article_snippet: Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt branded Islamic extremism a ‘poisonous and cancerous ideology’, which is ‘capturing the minds of many young people’.
article_snippet: The former TV historian spoke two weeks after three girls from Bethnal Green Academy in east London fled to Syria to join Islamic State.