The Trojan Horse Affair - Part 6
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I didn't feel great after I gave hams a hard time for going off on Richard thomson, the british humanist. And truth is, I wasn't the first time i'd done something like that where I called him out for crossing lines. I thought he shouldn't be crossing as a journalist. The first time was early on and are working together.

Hi horr .

has gone on IT was my last .

week of journalists school as I was crammed to get my final project done when .

brian going touch and .

we need to talk well, not great, honestly. Oh, good. Um so I I just got this email.

This was only reluctant at the primary school trying to find information about the head teacher, respond a dar and the four teaching assistance who said their resignation letters had been faked when brian requested records from the employment tribe you know about the case, the tribunal contacted the people involved to ask whether they wanted the records released. Turns out some of them did not.

Brian started at reading a letter to me that has been sent to the tribunal by the three most M. T. S. And response to his request.

The main responsibility of the journalist is to report the news in a truthful, unbiased in a political way, to educate the public about events in issues and how they affect their lives. I do not believe these matter will be reported in quote, on quote and unbiased in a political way. The lead figure in this exercise is mister siad, a student journalist, to intense, to use mister redd radio station as a medium to advocate his opinions.

Oh.

wow. We have received letters directly, indirectly slashing directly from mr. Side attached .

lessons they have. Oh, why?

IT is the content of these letters, which raised concerns. We quote a paragraph from the letter address to mister asylum.

Oh, no.

你 oh.

no.

Mister assen is the brother of two the teaching assistance from utley primer school. Bryan had a weird phone call with aslam early on to ask if i'd connect us with his sisters. He's reluctant to admit was him we were speaking to.

He asked suspiciously how we got his number for his low office, even though was just advertised online, and they hung up on us. IT seems like all you heard with the word's journalist and trojan horse. And he shut down.

We decided to follow with the letter, usually, brian, a look over to these emails and letter to potential sources before we send them. But aslam had seemed especially distrustful of reporters. Shortly after we talked, he actually changed his what's self profile picture of x me about media controlling the minds of the masses sauce to brian.

Let me try a more personal appeal with this one. Let me know that someone with some shared background involved in this project, brother to brother, I think of the words I actually said to prime. And so with this one letter I draft today on my own sealed the international pope.

And I dropped off. I asked them to office. I never heard back until now, as brian right to me, the court finding that he and the people involved in adelia ase, including the moneta and the best city council, has just been sent as well, quoting my letter to ask them.

quote, i'm on a master's programme for investigative journalism. Currently I graduate the september the trojan horse began as my dissertation project. As IT is my first attempt start writing wrongs.

I never believed in the official narrative of regarding the trojan horse. I never, the letter was authentic. I never believed taipei alem was masterminding the minister islamic plot.

I never believed birmingham's city council. I never believe Peter Clark. I never believe Michael gove.

I never believed was want a dar. And I never believe your sisters roth, those resignation letters. What I believe is i'm going to change the scene raaf insolation and quote.

old boy, with each old boy I was coming to terms of both have bad and how confusing the situation .

was by this point.

I knew the ts didn't want to participate in our story. I am trying to get in touch with them all sorts of ways, including through other family members who told me that they don't want this painful chapter. Tragedy began.

N. T. A said as much in the selected to the tribe you UNO. In fact, they went further, saying they worried that being thrown back into the public eye could put their safety at risk somehow. But in addition, the were not making the builder's argument that that they want me to have the records from case because I was too biased in favor of them.

We trust above sets out clearly our position as the applicants. In this case, you are faithful. Ly, so as bb as my octarian hana conm .

and then they've attached .

both your letter to oslo m and then you're letter to rahana. As evidence.

so. It's one thing as a reporter to have read on the situation, to have ferries. It's another to have such an unambiguous take and to spell IT out in writing and send IT around the people.

Others could do exactly what the T. S. Were doing brandish what hums had written to trying discredit our work. IT could caused people to distrust our reporting.

Plus we had new ministers on a dar for an interview, yet she's obviously of the key people we were reporting on. And I was hopeful SHE might talk to harm and me, but this letter, this was likely revonde dars introduction to us. Hams are writing that he never believed her. Do I wish you hadn't wrote this this way? I gotta be honest.

Yeah, I know. I know. I don't. I don't. You know what to do now. I am genuinely, genuinely so sorry for right in that may.

Clear I was a china was going to be strong this to get him on our side. You know, IT wasn't word that though would be like being passed around. I thought, okay, we're gonna go to win him with anything kind of how fast much as or just kind of go all in.

Yes, I understand why you wrote this and your this is new for you. I cat is your first story um but like i'm .

sorry yeah just may i'm sorry. No, i'm not trying to do .

i'm not not trying to shame apology. I don't worry about that, but I just. Like it's not a front the the you know like but I won't be like i'm open to any possibility you know of the truth here, you know yeah and I think you are too like you know I don't I read this and IT doesn't feel accurate to how you feel.

It's not just that we have our as a journalist, we have our opinions but don't say them I really try to really be open while letting facts lead me towards conclusions is not like I have some conclusion and then just don't say that you know, i'm not trying to elect you. I'm just trying to talk IT out. That's all. either.

Yes, i'm just i'm just.

He just coming back like five minutes or something. 然后 把 信息 改成 橙 模式。

Yeah.

hey, i'm so I didn't mean I I I feel like I was lecturing you there. I didn't mean for you to come off that way.

I'm really sorry. I think you got you got bodies for the situation. I have fucked us both of as my and you know your being surprisingly the patient with me from monday to files. Trust me, I would not be this informative with you if that was you done that um man, whatever I I own those words, I will own those words. You know um what you mean?

Own them. Do you believe them?

Like are they true? Okay, here is 那那那那 个 那 let me just be Frank here。 Okay, what's that list again? Who are saying that I don't .

believe um you never believed in the official narrative regarding the trojan horse? That seems fair. That's fine. yeah. I never believed the letter was authentic.

Take that one. You never believe .

taking her album was masterminding the sinister islamic plot.

I didn't. I never .

believed worming him. City council?

I don't. I don't know.

I never believed Peter Clark.

I don't.

I never believed Michael gove.

I don't.

I never believed was on a dar.

I don't. I thought, what you have there is like a reality of just a human being. You have my mindset as a person of what I thought this incident was, and you have my approach as a journalist of the wam.

Pursuing IT as a journalist is, I begin with like a hunch, like a instinct, you know, based on things that I ve researched. That doesn't mean that when fact suggests otherwise, I remain stuben. And I stick to my original premise. There's a reason this story is in broadcast. Yes.

I understand what you're saying, but and also the wording is I never believed, you know.

yeah I never a strong word. I know i'm i'm not, i'm not, I am not defending my language or the first my world, anything along that line IT poisons everything IT potens everything. Because now it's not in the hands of impartial journalist now is in the hands of like a bias know god, I just wish with god. 没。

I'd worked with homes along enough to know that what he was telling me was true. Sure, he had suspicions, but he was working hard to uncover facts. And following the facts where they LED, I was frustrated that he'd written his breath less letter that didn't properly capture the work I knew we were doing.

But would I realize now, listening back to this call with all my sorry mans and my discomfort, is that I was in middle of a change in how I understand my work. There was a way i'd one about my job for years that i'd begun to doubt without really admitting IT to myself. This change Crystalized for me after our next leg of reporting.

When we tease apart the government's investigations into birmingham schools, we dove into those investigations and the reports they produced, because for a year and a half hums, and i've been hearing that there wasn't any value in focusing on the church, an horse letter on its source or its purpose. The letter people would say whatever. Some known or factual errors didn't matter anymore, because all of the subsequent investigations had found that something troubling was happening in birmingham schools. The most damming investigation was also the most prominent one, conducted on behalf of the national department for education by the former head of counterterrorism and scotland yard, Peter Clark. And once we dealt in, Peter Clark report that what I really set in for me, what homes says up against, as a journalist covering the story and as a person from serial productions and the new york times, i'm brian read.

and I look pained me. Yes.

this is the trojan horse affair.

Alright, eight o'clock, as i've made in convenient nuclear in my letter to us, them, which now filed away in the midland best empyrean be. You know, I was a skeptical of clock, but I wasn't alone in that. The decision by the department of education to appoint the form ahead of counter terrorism, which describes desperately unfortunate by the chief constable of west.

into concern that the choice of this former terrorism official to investigate .

the day for education, Michael gove, was the one who chose p the clock to run the trojan horse investigation, and people started growing the moment go appointed him. The issues in both and schools seem to be about school procedures, curriculum hiring, religious practice. Clark was known for executing high profile terrorist's.

Why would you need someone with that background for this investigation? We dealing with allegations here. We not dealing with orchestra. We've had a number, but gov. Sent Peter up to burn anyway, if people have been unfairly alleged to have taken bodden activities of which they are entirely, then there can be no more effective figure to exonerate them of those charges.

Then Peter oclock, for three months, Clark posted up in my say, he in a team, media officials conducted forty three interviews, many on condition of animals, ity with staff connected to schools and his burma on and others. In the end of IT, he published his report. His conclusion was this, that they had been, quote, coordinated deliberations and sustained action Carried out by number of associated individuals to introduce an intolerant and aggressive islamic ethos into a few schools in, and that these people in positions of influence quote, a spouse indoors or fail to chAllenge extremist views.

Clark rides that he conducted an investigation in an atmosphere where there was a great deal of rumour, speculation and an evidence assertion. And so, quote, i've treated to the entire investigation as an exercise, in fact, finding and establishing a sound, verifiable and, whenever possible, fully CoOperated evidence space. When I read at a clock report for the first time, though, I was not seeing a CoOperated evidence space far from IT.

For instance, let's look a park view school to which clocked to votes a lot of attention in his report. In one chapter, he includes a bully poor list of allegations about park view at the very top. The list the first item.

Peter Clark, speaks about a terrorist video in the school. Terrorist video in the school.

This is the halem park views, former Cherry covenas. When we asked him about Peter clogs investigation, he remember this future thing immediately it's won a clogs. Most incentive findings from any school, quote, I T technicians recording what appeared to be ali terrorist videos into A D, V D format.

Now what impression do you get from that in a school should be terrorist videos? The answer is no. So the schools done something wrong happening. Now, what information did Peter clock have from the people in the school? That particular video was brought in by somebody who was working a for the police.

According to to him, someone doing an antique program for the cops had noticed at the school had a DVD burner and asked if they could use him. And the video they were copying.

the terrorist video happens to be a panorama program.

You know, that show .

IT was no terrorist video. IT was a documentary done by the BBC parumo program about maybe afghanistan.

the hair, says park. He shared this explanation would be the clock in his investigation team. In fact, they shed a lot of mitigating and controverting evidence for the claims people were living against them. Yet Peter clock includes little reference to that information in the report beyond one nine, saying, quote, IT is only fair to point out the park view had disputed most, if not all, of the allegations today.

If you go on the government's website, you'll see the terrorist video still leads the list of claims about park view, even though the department for education later wrote an internal memo that we've seen admitting that can find no proof to back up. I want to evaluate the other claim to be a clock report. I knew that a year or so after the report came out, many of the allegations have been interrogated in public hearings at what was known as the national college for teaching and leadership when the government tried to ban a number the park you have from the teaching profession.

During those hearings, park few leaders and enlai yers had the opportunity to put forward their side of the storing and cross examine, not Peter clock himself, who would in testify the hearing and also declining to speak to us, but the D. F. V.

Officials would investigate the park view with him and clock sources from inside the school. So I got the transcript, the hearing against park view sea leading team. There was thousands of pages.

And to the whole summer to slog through, i'm going to take the next two thousand hours to walk you through each allegation. I'm kidding. Sort of I am going to take you through a burn to the clock allegations once the government focused on in the case against the teachers. Because IT is the only way I can think of to fully convey the sink holes and clocks investigation and why I don't think anyone should be basing their understanding of the trade on this report. A number of the claims and clock report we've discuss already as part of our interview was soon in Steve packet er Peter clock reports on the sex education class, the tennis lesson like a promotion and opportunity for women.

But there are a lot more for one clock rights the park few student prefects, our visionary hall monitors were trained according to some staff to Operate as morality police that they'd provide the head teacher with the names of pupils who same had a boyfriend or girlfriend, or the girl who wasn't sufficiently covered at the disciplinary hearing. A year later, the government was unable to put forward any students who remembers this, actually put forward no students to testify against school at all. The testimony the government did provide to support this claim was from one part of you teacher who said, understand that he believes student prefects were monitoring in the school as religious police because he saw kids in detention and didn't know why they were there, and another teacher told her I was because they were in a relationship.

The school denied there was a recent students of being detention. But regardless, this teacher doesn't explain how he got the idea that a student prefects would snapped on their classmates. Meanwhile, a number of the teachers testified that they never heard about prefects acting as a morality squad, and a form prefect took to the stand to say they won't ask to do anything like that.

There's a lot in the clock er port about the assembly, a part of your school being anti american or a anti Christian or anti israel with a doctorate of students coming on rather hearing from what I gathered with in the transcript. And this was confirmed by lawyer involved with the case. Most of the staff who made claims about the nature of assembly lies admit they never been to an assembly at the school.

Subacid was won, so testified the school assemblies were only ever used by men and when confronted by lawyer with the names of women on staff who d host the assembly at school, sue said had a statement about the only being men was based on her quote, belief that that was the case one teacher who testified had attended the semples es, he said during one of them, park views acting head teacher moses saying, told children that quote, the answer to everything is ekram would you found concerning? Because why equate does mean read or seeking knowledge in arabic. It's a religious stem from the cron.

And this teach felt uncomfortable with them. You also dentists, ed, that he didn't agree that agra is the answer to everything. Peter Clark wrote that some eastern mu schools had, for religious reasons, prevented students from hearing musical instruments and from singing.

At the disciplinary hearing, A D, F, V investigator admitted that he hadn't checked inside the couple in park with music room. What the music teacher says. The instruments were kept. School staff spoke of party students singing at assemblies of children being on stage with rodger waters, the basis of being flayed. Clock also writes that he found financial mismanagement apart school, one of his fellow investigators from the D, F, E stated at the hearing, but they found no such think.

This is the problem with the Clark report. He provides no clear sourcing or verification for the vast majority of allegations. There are scant facts or figures or footnotes or context, which is not, by the way, Peter clerk's Normal style.

After the trojan horse affair, he went on to become england's prison inspector. And in the reportedly produced for that job, he's way more transparent about his work and how his findings are CoOperated. The prison reports are annotated, false statistics, where an instruction in horse support you kind of have to take his word for IT even claims that we're based on something that did occur.

There was often more to the story than what Clark reported, for example, Clark rights that there were attempts to stop Christmas celebrations in park view. It's true that to hear alarm and others believe that some parents would object to their kids participating in certain Christmas activities, such as playing a Christian figure in activity play. The student body was around ninety seven percent muslims, but was missing from quark report is that the school did put up Christmas trees, held a Christmas assembly where a pastor spoke about the holiday organized to Christmas music concert.

At the hearing, Steve packet er, who see most concerned about Christmas, testified that all this was true. So he said there weren't Christmas songs sung at the Christmas concert. Clark also writes that park view did not have a procedure for vetting external speakers invited to the school, which leadership acknowledged.

Peter clock returned several times to this one in mom who visited from australia, who, despite the fact that the australian government has called A A widely respected islamic figure in the country and a moderating influence on muslim youth, Clark says, has a history of extolling extremist views. The mom's name is shake shadie assurement. And the specific quote, Clark references from an old sermon of shake shades, was actually read into the record of the house of commons by Michael gove.

The school invited the picture shake shadi all sulema to speak, despite the fact that he is reported to have said, give Victory to muslims in afghanistan, give Victory to all the major hodan all over the world, or other prepares for the jihad. I know gob was recording those words from shake shade d is old sermon, as if there's scary, but at least from my experience as a pretty generic sounding sign off for friday prayers.

And we read a landy dossier, the home office prepared about shake shady after Peter clock, which officials agree they're right. Quote, this rhetoric is likely to be heard from a arms and mosques around the U. K. And overseas when they makes specific prayers for people affected by wars and other calamities. These words, the quote, using a very common prayer or to buy muslims everywhere, Peter clocks over ging allegation.

The big charge of all these are the claims that into was that there was too much islamic influence, a park view, and of the schools that they're become fade schools, as he puts IT in orbit name, but is totally unclear from Clarks report what standards or benchMarks are used to make that assessment. The develop education provides pretty clared direction as to how schools should incorporate religious education in a collective worship, none which is referenced in the clock report. And that maybe because of a stunning revelation made during the hearing, Clark's lead educational adviser, the person from the deep ome for education who supposed to end expertise about school regulation and management to his inquiry, admitted under ross examination that SHE had never read nor provided Peter clock any our own departments guidance on religion commodation in bridge schools.

If SHE had, Clark might have had to explain his report how part of you had run a five, the requirement school should, quote, aim to provide the opportunity for pupils to worship god, to consider spiritual and moral issues and to explore their wrong beliefs. Instead, clocks argument that there's undue islam influence in the schools or islamic influence of the wrong kind is untethered to the statuary guidelines abroad. Free floating subjective critique. It's basically opinion that is too much a slam.

Peter Clark Marshals this mineral allegations. Some true, some kind of true, some that turned out not to be true to lay out a wider story about his spermid m schools, a narrative which he interleaved through the allegations that i'd summarized something like this. A lot of these schools were doing pretty well until a bunch of muslim governors came in and started agitating for changes in line with an extreme islam world view.

Their methods and motives were improper. They started taking control in a bunch of schools. And because the complaints and outcomes repeat from school to school, that means these aren't isolated incidents.

They're connected. The school at the epicenter of all the islamization ation is park view. The person at the a percent of park view is to hear alarm, to hear. He is the main villain in Clark report, which is not my phrase, by the way, as officials with the D. F, S. Counter extremism unit were working with Peter Clark, but the finishing touches on his report, one of them sent an email we've seen, which refers to to hear, and three other muslim men who worked with them as governors, as their, quote, main villains.

You will see clock published a spider diagram on me. okay? We actually have that .

point that out. You're going one of the show to you and get your take on IT.

Yeah, I don't deny any of IT.

After the list with the terrorist video, turn the page and you'll see a tiny ninety clipper image of a man who looks White, by the way, able, able to hear alarm. There are lions eminent from him in all directions like a web, Chris crossing and connecting between to here in icons of schools and office buildings and other White looking clip. Our educators with pakistani names, all individuals and organizations that to hear was associated with this.

is painted as some kind of, some kind of network. But these are things that are very proud of. I access here, for example.

Uh, he worked for firming up city council as a governor trainer. wow. Uh, he is a vice chair of the association of muslim schools.

How bad is that? Uh, and birmingham ance network K A, so I was a member of the birmingham ance network for many years, contributing to improving governance across the city. So obviously, that's not maybe good either. Let's go through a few more. Left academy governor, Cherry governor.

more than a few but to hear, insisted on finishing them. He was a member of the local multi faith organization, sqa. He'd been the chair of education for the muslim council of britain, a big national organization. He was a trusty at the .

burning of central mosque. So Peter clock, with these tons of experience as a terror expert, you know, hunting extremists and terrorists down around the country.

He's produce this, especially your C. V.

IT is taken from my cv.

It's possible to hear IT provided his resume in an application to the df some years before, which had this information on IT.

I submitted all of this that made him into a spider dog and using IT against me.

It's amazing when you take all the things that would in A C, V, be arranged like a resume and arrange them in a spider diagram and give a different impression by a police officer by counterterrorist al IT just has a whole different vibe.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. It's being crafted to give a certain image.

And the spider dig me supposed to give an impression as if i'm some kind of criminal who has infiltrated all these different organizations. This is supposed to serve the idea of the trojan horse. This is giving the reality to the trojan horse.

There's a critical fact about to hear in park view that Peter Clark left out of his report the fact that if he had included IT could have thorough undercut his entire narrative park view and to hear alarm, we're taking over other exergaming m schools because they've been asked to by the department for education. Park view was considered this huge success, and there were two other schools nearby that really need to help.

And so the whole takeover ver was authorized and set in motion by the df through a program that Michael gove himself was champion, the academies program. Amazingly, Peter Clark never explains this to you. Be forgiven if you came away from reading his report with the idea that muslim governors, we're making these moves illegitimately.

If you thought they were scheming under the radar emissions like this, along with all the allegations printed without context or rebutting the spider diagrams, IT all contributes to a strong impression that Peter Clark did uncover a plot in. But when you read the report closely, this is another confounding thing about IT. Clark never actually says whether he found a potter night. He does write, quote, the key question is whether what has happened has been an organized plot as described in the church in horse letter, but then he never explicit answers that question, yes or no. This up station, which is at the very heart of the report's findings, LED to a telling moment as Peter clock was testifying in the house of comments about the church, an horse here, when a member of parliament said, doing.

I just ask mr. Club first relation to some of the evidence that you reduced to to demonstrate there was a plot in in apparently the .

mp read the report and took away from a plot. Clark, at the correction tells them, I haven't actually said that. I haven't said I found a plot.

actually. Yes, plot. The M. P. Pauses for a moment, then asks .

the conservative action.

Well, you can ever continue at one end, there's a of a lot of spontaneous things just happened.

At the other end, you got a group of people, perhaps in a darkened room, sitting around the canal, deciding to do something in a very different way. Somewhere between them.

you will have people, as I believe we have here, who.

with a common mindset, common objectives known to each other, worked in the same organizations, have working the same profession, have shared the objectives and about achieving the objectives using a set of tactics which are remarkably similar every time they emerge. And remarkably, Peter courts report, rather than clarifying that the trojan horse letter was a fake, the plot and evidenced spun a web of legitimacy around both.

To take my q from peer o'clock, I want to share some concerns I have about some people with the common mindset who know each other, have worked in the same organizations, had common objectives and said about achieving those objectives. Two people who fit that description, a Peter clock, and the man who appointed him, former education secretary Michael golf, those who have known each of that for many years, many repeater clock filiation would think tanks that Michael golf helped establish, which could form their own spider iram onest ly.

These think tanks and the politicians and journeys and officials will part them, have long advocated of you that ultimately made its way into the conservative government's policy agenda that in order to prevent terrorism, authorities have to target so called non violent extremists. Michael girl s has been pushing this strategy for years. In the past, there was an attempt to say that the only way in which we could do with this problem is if we dealt with extremism when he became violent and we waited too late.

And I think he argues that there's a previous ent stage to extremism during which muslims get drawn into the ideology of islamism. Islamism is a little italian view, like commission, like fashion. And in that respect, the only way which one can understand the motivation is, if you look at the teita, an roots of the ideology, rather than simply thinking that that alcoa are a national liberation movement like other terrorist organza, you mention the area the difficile with. This is what many people see as early signs of extremism. The markers of free violence can be hard to distinguish from the elements of daily life.

For many muslims, deciding to attend mosque more frequently, dressing traditional name, grown a beard, associating with certain muslim groups like the most m counts of britain, and having a world view in which our religion and political opinion are in intermingled, for instance, identifying with muslims around the world who are being victimized, criticizing western powers for oppressions abroad or wearing any club, which Michael gove in his book cela seven seven characterises as, quote, not so much a mark of islamic faith as a badge of allegiance towards islamist politics. IT Marks the war upon as one who's become an internal exam. Slightly more poetic, I guess, than our current prime minister, who called women who cover their faces, letter boxes and bank robbers.

Essentially, the concept of free violence puts all muslims on the spectrum in which we roll capable slide towards violence. And so we all need to be kept under surveilLance. About theoretic reticent zone has been pretty rally debug ed academics and I mi five and the U. S. Department of defense form A C, I A agents have all pointed out that there's no empirical evidence to support him.

Experts who study radical zone haven't found a single design able pathway to terrorism and warned that trying to paint down some sort of pattern or ideology can be counterproductive because it's not proven to work and IT can make people feel criminalized and alienate in their own countries. Still, many of the people who shaped counterterror policy have held onto this go clock. The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, future prime minister, trees may people in the us. Two, by the time the trojan horse that a came round, Michael golf had spent years in a lot of political currency investing in this world of you, if you read the clockers pool with the theory of previous ence in mind, suddenly makes a lot more sense, especially when you consider the most damning evidence in the clock or his smoking gun. That's next.

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IT was a group cham that was Peter clock smoking gun. We've mentioned that before there was a men only whats up group that a bunch of park few staff ers were part of, called the park view brotherhood. Somebody gave clock a transcript of some thirty two hundred messages from the chat.

A years worth, I need devote a whole chapter to them, because he says the messages are proof of the muslim educators collective mindset. According to clock, most the messages were inside about school events, job postings, ideas for semble es. But among them will text a heaw as evidence of the ideology these men describe to clock, called an intolerant and politicized form of extreme social conservatism that claims to represent, and ultimately, six to control all muslims.

The messages he found concerning included an article about our european bias in the teaching of world history, a debate about the present coins of teaching boys and girls separately, criticism of the british military, an image of this radi flag on a road of toilet paper, skepticism and theorizing about media reporting on terrorist attacks in a discussion about possibly having students right, let us to the government to protest a farm right is number four pic group as part of their citizenship lessons. S alongside those Clark fight, several radio enerve messages, which, if you follow the children horse inquiries at the time, you probably remember here in about headlines. These are primarily from one teacher who will be interviews for the series was one for us.

In one exchange, where is one makes a comment about women belonging in the kitchen, serving men in another was wanting to an article by gay marriage and said, these animals are going out full force. Another time, a teacher posted a link about shrine boxon being used as a meeting place for gay man. Several teachers in a chat rejected their disapproval, including roswal e, who wrote, quote, the problem of homo sexuality is rife in pakistan.

These messages are most gerish and homophones and clearly troubling. Coming from a teacher. Cloth's report makes mention of stuff for some schools who reported that they had to hide their sexuality. If true, that's awful.

Obviously, when we asked was wanted by the messages, he told us the kitchen comment was a joke and that he since change his views on homosexuality and become an advocate for gay and transnational rights. But after clock publish response comments, a judge found that they went beyond protected religious beliefs in amount to a breach of professional standards. Whether and how to talk about sexuality team agenda ebro schools is still in active controversy.

In two and nineteen, a progressive news sex add curricular debuted at a primary school in the east burn again, and parents lost their minds, protesting in large numbers. Their opposition included as some ugly, homopoulo arguments. Some parents even pull their kids up schools.

This is shocking or released IT shouldn't be. Many muslims were here to conserve a different, different interpretation to here. Alarm among them aren't accepting of L, G, B, T, Q.

people. The same is true about Christians in the u. game. Only forty percent of them support gay marriage. Am not saying homophily a or sexism doesn't matter because we're not the only ones. I'm saying IT does matter because we're not the only ones. These problems require good faith engagement from leaders, and yet, rather than grapple with important issues at hand, he is what our commented in responsible, what that messages and the clock er pool. Other news now the government is to fast track a tough new crackdown on extremism.

It's a follow up to promises made in the aftermath .

of the trojan .

horse safaa in and .

the jAiling .

of extremist once Peter clocks report was presented to parliament by the depth education politicians said about using IT to make sweeping changes to combat providing extremism, what would have implications far beyond on a rock.

although as we reported at the time, no evidence of ratio za was ever found. No evidence of violent extremism was ever found. There was no organized plot.

but this is about the potential for problems in the future.

In a speech in birmingham today, the prime minister compared the threat of extremist islam to that of hitler, communism, the I R. A. And in the past in and fifteen.

prime minister David Cameron stood in front of a burma school and invoke the trojan horse affair to lay out the rationale for a robust remagen ing of the country's country extremism strategy.

We undertaken immediate review when I became apparent that extremists have taken over some of our schools in the so called georgian horse scandal here in burma. But I have to be honesty. One year on, or they were making progress, it's not quick enough, I think.

Tanks made hair of IT, the home secretary, the time to reason me, made a wrong trip to blame, to deliver a trolley horse inspired speech by extremism. Even the queen got on board at the request of the tories. Measures were also be brought forward .

to promote social cohesion and protect people by tackling extremism.

They all commented in the government expanding their counter extremism policy. This could prevent in a way that we're still living with today. Citing the trojan horse affair, the government Mandated that public employees would now be obligated to be on the look out for people exhibiting the early markers of extremism, or the behavior defines suspicious, which means now in britain, citizen are informing on each other to the state based on their own judgment about whether an action or comment is extremist. Doctors are informing on their patients, workers on their colleagues, teachers on their students.

In the year since the children horse of are we've had in eleven old referred to the prevent program because in response to questions, school about what he would do if he came into a lot of money, said to give arms to the oppressed. A, L, M, S, which is mister ard as arms to the oppressed and a four year old who referred withdrawing an illustration of his father with a cooker bomb that was later understood to be a cucumbers. We can level all this, except ironies.

Reports like these can easily follow kids all the way into idle od that they were flagged to prevent. They remain people of interest. And this is the crazy incidents that made the news. The program has been found by numerous academics and human rights. Ts groups to be discriminatory against us were referred in hugely disproportionate numbers as a director of an organ sation that monitors the program, put IT not longer o prevent, inject suspicion and discrimination deep into the imagination of front light workers to the detriment of muslims.

We ask Peter Clark, Michael gove and the department for education if they could explain some of the flaws we've seen in Peter Clark report. In return, the D F E sents a statement saying the trojan or investigation LED by Peter Clarke rightly focused on whether the events and behaviors alleged actually happened, and the findings have subsequently been confirmed by a number of independent reports.

And quote, so just for a minute, awd about those other independent reports won. The D F E mentioned by the education funding agency was not independent of Clarks. The education funding agency was part of the D F.

E. And some of the same people who conduct to that inquiry were also part of. Peter Clark team even drafted whole chapters of his report. Another investigation the df.

He cited was by offset ad, the school inspectors who had downgraded ded park view from the agencies highest rinking to the absolute lowest, a downgrade that dramatic is nearly unheard of. Off stead said I was because the school wasn't doing enough to prevent the possibility of extremism. But a lot of people, including prominent education experts, claimed Austin had to come to political pressure.

Austen s. Chief inspector, was even dragged in front of parliament and grow about IT. And lately the D F E mentioned firming and city councils. Torgan horror investigation by ian carshaw carshot collaborated closely with Peter carr too.

They did join interviews, shared evidence, and while he did determine that some governors had overstepped in pushing for academic and religious changes at their schools, unlike Clark, he did not allege a sinister ideological threat. When we interviewed her shop, he really minimize the whole affair, telling us, quote, one should not over blow the trojan horse. Some people say scandal IT wasn't big enough to be a scandal.

And quote, one of the recommendations Peter Clark made at the end of his investigation was that the department of her education should consider taking action against teachers who might have reached professional standards. The D, F, I did IT restricted or outright suspended more than a dozen teachers, mostly from park view. With the charge a, they agreed to the inclusion at the school of a quote undo amount of religious influence.

And the department started holding those discipline hearings to determine if the teacher should be permanently banned. As we mentioned, the most prominent of the cases was against five of perfuse leaders, people who'd been head teachers and assistant heads in the alike, though not to hear alarm because he was a volunteer governor, not a teacher, he was just banned out right when appearing lost this hearing. IT was the first time the park three teachers would get a chance to try to formally clear their names. Our child, who saying was one .

of them are the initial SATA tes, I think the heating for three months to bring for two and half years, they were making IT up as .

they go along. During this time.

our shot on his colleagues, two of whom, interestingly enough, aren't muslim, which LED themselves to a drab building in coventry with the government, would argue that they weren't .

fit to work in schools. You can't teach your headings are Scott across the two years so you got a day here day that just by this point.

the charge against arsht and his colleagues have been watertown significantly from when the trojan horse allegations first emerged, as the government's attorney said in his opening statement, despite what you may have red or heard, this case is not, and I cannot stress this enough, this case is not about an evil plot to induct trate Young children and extremist ideologies or anything like IT, he said.

The department education was not suggesting that the educators were, quote, malicious or ill. Will IT was not suggesting that part of you hadn't had great success with the government was arguing, the attorney said, was that the teachers had failed to respect diversity by going quote too far and inducing their own vision of the cultural identity they wish these children to have. And all White panel set listen to all White lawyers argue about this until the case finally concluded in may of twenty seventeen, three and a half years after the trojan horse sleep arrived on surrounded boor's desk, this essentially marked the end of the trojan horse affair.

And the end was its own magnificent, enraging shambles. IT was the final hour the disciplinary panel was drafting its decision, and they're been this back and forth that had been going on since the beginning of the proceedings about the transcripts of interviews that Peter Clark team has conducted with witnesses from park few school. The park few teachers had asked for these transfers repeatedly.

They had a right to see them, and the whole time the department educations lawyers and said didn't have them, that they weren't relying on the interview transcripts to argue their case. But that wasn't true. IT emerged at the very last minute that the D, F, E did have them, and they had used them to amount their case.

The whole time, years, the government's lawyers have been deliberately withholding crucial evidence from the park, few teachers, their legal teams and the panel. The government have been sitting at least sixteen hundred pages of documents, including the Clark transcripts. When the disciplinary panel learn this, on the eve of reading its decision, the panellists demanded that the senior solicit for the government's legal team appear in front of them and explain yourself, explain how she's let this happen.

But SHE didn't show. SHE said he had a partner's meeting for her law from that SHE couldn't miss. And so the panellists discontinued the case. They issued no findings. They were a new decision, which said of the D, F, S. Lawyer's actions, quote, there has been an abuse of the process, which is of such seriousness that IT defends the panel sense of justice and propriety. What has happened has brought the integrity of the process into dispute.

On the whole thing of blue.

our child who saying, remembers sitting in the hearing room as the panel read .

its decision as they started in pushing in that direction. Abuse of processing hearings going to be dropped in our start is literally getting flashes in in, in front of my, in front of I is seen a king her. This has happened because somebody has withheld evidence this list had with held the evidence and SHE couldn't come to the hearing because he was on a flight that evening conveniently.

And you know, he couldn't come and answer the questions where, as we'd been answering questions for two years, he just wasn't up to available to answer the questions and explain why is up. You know why? Why I should done that? You know, you have missed many people's lives up, and you can't bullets show up.

My mind just went, you know, to copy that. Somebody decided to do that you, for this amount of time. And yet, on the one sitting here, you know, just broke down, I think.

Just felt .

like when .

you step on a beetle on the three or in and there's no consequence, there's no feeling of or what have I done is just yet not just part of what IT is you know have trapped on on, on these people. Yeah, okay, get through. Yeah, we haven't won this one, but just Carry on.

Eventually, every teacher's case in the trojan horse affair, except for one who was not from park view, was thrown out because of the government's lawyers misconduct. And they are unwillingness to share the underlying material from Peter Clark's investigation. After all, the drama, the headlines, the investigations, the parliamentary hearings, the banning orders, the million plus pounds spent prosecuting teachers, the new prevent requirements, compelling people to survey each other, the common deering of schools in these firming and worsening academic outcomes for students, that was how the children horse affair ended. IT was officially resolutioners park view teachers weren't banned, but nor we've indicated.

So that's what I saw when we find a turn to pit a clock, report this investigator document, they became the most common response by officials to questions about the trolling. An horsell a do not worry about whether the letter was a hoax or not, or where came from, because Peter clock produce a far more reliable document. Well, IT turns out 带 我是 阻碍 the close report was also， in his own ways, bogus.

After I internalize that conclusion, I experiences a level of dejection that was hard for me to understand. After this, what I believe to be true when I began the story that the trojan horse was much to do about nothing, and yet the work of reporting on the clock report A K. Britain's official narrative of the case was emptying, sitting them, surrender by documents.

I strugling to imagine, what are the group of people you could do this to in brain and get away with them, trying to come to terms with how worth this people must think we are, that they will be comfortable assembling an official report ridal with errors and miss truths submitted to parliament, sharing IT with prominent journeys to write articles about or with no expectation that people ouldn't believe them more far from repercussions. A number of clock team, including clock, were promoted after the publication of the inquiry into the trojan horse. And he knows the process by which I arrived at this point, that being janis M.

I filing, which was made absolutely there to me when my awesome letter surfaced, i'm obligated to keep an open mind, to be fair, with the likes of p o'clock and Michael golf, to consider their perspective, try to understand the choices they made, and you I am going to come at them critically to rain in my tone and words. So IT doesn't feel I come just out to get them in some way. IT did not seem like that kind of respect was mutual.

I've always known that reporting this story is a much different experience for hamza than IT is for me ever since the beginning when we burst out of council house after our first interview with Albert bar.

what the fuck was concerning, tell me, was concerning.

This became the subject of an ongoing discussion between the two of us about how you're supposed to do this work.

We go through this step by step, kind of side by side, but you are just like unflappable homes are perpetually .

bewildered as to how I was able to take the things we were encountering and learning and strike the way I do.

I like, I do think about you sometimes when I do one, that how you wired, really, sometimes I wake up and I think, uh, I should be like that. And that's how I need to be in order of for me to do well in this field.

and me constantly struggling to explain me and my motivation.

What did you do IT here?

Oba, I don't know you going to be introspective in a way that's difficult, but by the time we were waiting through the Clark investigation, the tenor of our debate had changed. I noticed times are becoming increasingly bitter about being a journalist, and he started to talk more about how maybe this new field he entered wasn't right from something about the job felt on natural.

And he told me he was thinking he might not keep doing IT after the series came out, which was dispiriting for me because sure, hums had done a couple of things during investigation that seemed to me ill advised, but he is a good journalist, dogget, sharp, intuitive, original. He seemed as well suit as anybody for this job. But here's what i've come to realize, homs.

And I were experiencing differently, working alongside each other on this story for so long. The trojan horse. And I don't mean the trojan horse letter or the trojan horse fair.

I mean the idea of the trojan horse, this idea which infected every aspect of the events we were investigating, the idea that muslims who are participating in civic life in the west are an actually using western democratic systems, duplicitous, sly, as a vessel to sneak into societies and countries. They are not really their own, so they can suspect them. That phrase, trojan, in reference to muslims, it's not taboo.

It's perfectly acceptable to using, in the name of official reports in a to parliament, or as Michael gove did in celsa seven seven as the title of a chapter in your book about the muslim threat, or in the name of your podcast, it's acceptable to use them in your campaign, president of the united states. This could be the great trojan horse of all time, because you look at the migration study IT, look at IT. Now they're start infiltrating with women and children.

And trump used the trigger horse metaphor to speak about muslims over and over in his run for president, who was part of a stem speech, tens of thousands of syrian refugee. S who probably, in many cases, not probably, who are definitely, in many cases, iceland, and we now have them in our country. And why do you see what this going to be?

The great rogan horse, this true of muslims as a trojan horse, it's a racist lie. One that strikes me is not to similar in its potency in danger to, for instance, the antisemitic c. Ly, about a ball of jews and furiously controlling western institutions that lie. Its work noting was also proliferated by a hooke's document, the protocols of the elders of ion.

The canard that muslims .

are seriously infiltrating western countries also shows up in some scary places, waited to premises literature about the so called replacement theory, White premises terrorists like under s brave who killed seventy seven people in norway, or the man who masoch cured fifty one people at two masks in new zealand. They both rote at length about the threat of muslims as invaders.

In the last few years, governments around the world have drawn on the same bigoted views to justify assaults on muslims. The wagers in china, there were hino in mind mar the terrible treatment of muslims in india, which seems to be getting worse. The U.

S. Spending, immigration for many majority muslim countries. People are Carrying this trauma. Around late last year, a relatively new muslim member of parliament, ZARA tana, gave a heartbreaking speech about water time in british politics. I'd been like before .

being elected. I was nervous about being a missing woman in the public eye growing up by a teen, abuse prominent british muslims s were subject to. I knew I wouldn't be in for an easy ride.

When Young listen, girls asked me what it's like. I'd like to say there's nothing to worry about that they would face the same chAllenges as they are non muslim friends and colleagues. But madam chat, I didn't choose.

I can't state that because in my short time in parliament, that's not my experience. So let me read out a few examples. One person, for example, wrote me and I quote, so tina, you and your muslim mob are real danger to humanity.

Another route, i'm a cancer everywhere I go. And soon they said, europe will vomit you out. I have just doubled that. To be a muslim woman, to be outspoken and to be left wing is to be subject to this barge of racism and hate, is to be treated by some as if I weren't enemy of the country that I was borne in, as if I don't .

belong modem chair.

This issa phobia doesn't come from a vacuum um is not natural or ingrained. It's taught from the very top. These fires are banned by people in positions of power and privilege. Today, our prime minister mox muslims as letter boxes and bank robbers and far from scrap room current. Earlier this year, his government announced who would lead a review of the program, William shore cross, a man who once said, and I quote, europe and islam is one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future, is, suppose a is very real in britain today.

This is what hamza was facing that I wasn't. And thinking about hamza approach and reactions to investigation this way is outspokenness. His anger, his urgency is sometimes crazed feeling that no matter what we tried in our reporting, IT was never enough. IT makes every kind of sense.

We have to stop pulling back me. We have to stop out in every single opportunity. We have to go hard.

We pull back. We pulled back. We pull back. So I don't okay, if you think i'm rude, I don't OK. If you think i'm a decent.

I want you to know and IT makes every kind of sense why the journal stick process, which the way i'd learnt that encourages a attached and point, give space for all relative sides to weigh in and give their perspectives in this instance, with this story.

Repulsed home with because what if the dominant .

perspective in a story is one that's messed with a racism against you? him? I understand.

I understand. I am with you. But also remember, we're in a .

long game and. I have never let myself just be shot on the way I have for a year and a half. Never, never I can sit there taking because of a ject that fuck this title was serious. Ly author title the fucking and river. If he means I can just be myself.

If I think back to the reasons I gander journalism, if you asked me back then why I was drawn to IT, I would have told you, I like stories. I want to learn the craft. I'm interested in people I do to trust authority.

I want to hold them accountable. Making a change in the world would have been in there, but not at the top of the list. Bahasa has been clear from the get go about his reason for getting into this work.

In fact, aside from that unfortunate paragraph in his letter to oslo m, in which homs, a list of the people he never believed most of he wrote, that letter amounts to a moving mission statement. If you believe journalism is an evil organ capable of causing great damage, harms a row, than by default, you believe that same organ can reach as many people to cause great change. That's the concept. I've decided to dedicate my life, too. He would pursue this work, he wrote as a muslim, first and foremost, and as a journalist, second.

Next, on the church horse affair, officials tell us we've got in the story or wrong, so wrong, they throw me to go to a judge together. S were talking to about them. And we realize actually we didn't miss something that's coming up in the detail of the deputies.

The trojan horse is produce by brian reid and me, along with the ruby collects the shows edited by Sarah ic, additional editing by our glass and by contributing I an iza sedition fact in a research by micaceous y and been fAiling original school by Thomas meller, with additional music by map beginning and Stephen Jackson sound design mixing in music supervision by Stephen Jackson, and fill them a hoskin at the audio on visual company. Judi sinus are executive editor, drummer, is managing editor, supervising producers, and a tuba executive assistant is a boto delay on some donate is an assistant in managing .

editor of the new york times. Audio was licenced by BBC motion gallery getting images and .

low eclipse I T V archive. Special thanks to for a vides a patel shocked tha Andrew fox, Frank length fit, clemency, walls downing, len and some johnston hok from reprove r. Ryan later eight hudge and poor request.

Some books and articles we found really helpful that we want to mention john homewood, and to resent tools countering extremism in british ols as well against White feminism by reference ZARA the muslim problem, why we're wrong about islam and why IT matters by the sif con Michael, go of a man in a hurry by own benefits, not about the burka, edited by mariam khan should mean me as muslim. Schooling and security trojan horse, prevent and racial politics and the mere shackles piece in the guardian trojan horse, the real story behind the fake islamic plot to take over schools also british pakistani boys education and the role of religion in the land of the trojan horse by kami ball James fergus's Albertini my country media and burma m. Naja and brand by ino's boon and cut from the same edited by saba actor, the children .

horse of fame is made by zero productions and the new york times.

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