FBI look to EDL backers for guidance on Islam

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 08:21

It appears that the FBI has been drawing guidance on Islam from Robert Spencer, a prominent anti-Muslim figure who co-founded the group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).

Spencer runs the SIOA group with Pam Geller, and together they led the protest against the planned Islamic Centre near the Ground Zero site in New York. He has also backed the violent English Defence League, saying in March 2010: "The EDL is standing up to violent thugs from both the Left and the increasingly assertive Islamic communities in Britain, and they deserve the support of all free people."

The story first broke in Wired magazine, last September, when it reported that FBI instructional materials included claims that mainstream Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers, that Muhammad was a “cult leader,” and that the more “devout” a Muslim is, the more likely he is to be “violent.”

Mike German, a former FBI agent who once infiltrated American radical-right groups but now works for the American Civil Liberties Union, told Wired: “Seeing the materials the FBI agents are being trained with certainly helps explain why we’ve seen so many inappropriate FBI surveillance operations broadly targeting the Muslim-American community. … Biased police training can only result in biased policing.”

According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, "Spencer has written a dozen books on the topics of Islam and the Koran. The FBI recommended The Truth about Muhammadand The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam — both of which hinge on Spencer’s skewed interpretation of Islam as a violent religion inseparable from the actions of its most radicalized adherents."

For more on the story visit: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/winter/fbi-used-training-materials-from-anti