WikiLeaks cable says US wanted moderate Pak Imams in UK
By ANITuesday, December 14, 2010
LONDON - The latest leaked US diplomatic cable reveals that the United States was mulling to import moderate Pakistani Imams in UK to take control over rising extremism in Britain.
The News quotes the cable, as saying, the British press reported that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that Britain would launch a SIPDIS new initiative to bring “moderate Pakistani Imams” to preach in Britain.
On April 24, the Head of the Home Office’s Prevent Unit, Paul Morrison, was spoken to in which he said that the initiative had been miscast and exaggerated in the press.
Morrison said the Home Secretary had been in discussions with Pakistani officials during her April 13-14 visit to Pakistan about what could be done to diminish the terror threat in the UK.
One idea floated was for Pakistani religious authorities to visit the UK as part of HMG’s ongoing program to bring visiting religious scholars to the UK to promote moderate interpretations of Islam.
Morrison clarified that it was not HMG’s policy to import foreign Imams. (ANI)
