Editor
Telegraph Media Group,
111 Buckingham Palace Road,
London
SW1W 0DT

16 December 2007

Dear Sir,

Charles Moore used his column this week (Daily Telegraph, 15 Dec) to try and salvage the reputation of Policy Exchange, the think tank which he chairs, from the criticisms made in an investigation by the BBC Newsnight team.

It was notable, however, that not once did Mr Moore actually address the central and very serious issue raised by Newsnight: did the researchers working for Policy Exchange fabricate some of the receipts which they claim to have obtained from Islamic bookshops? This question must be answered definitively for it quite clearly calls into question the authenticity of the findings of the Policy Exchange report, 'The Hijacking of British Islam'. For if the Policy Exchange researchers were prepared to falsify those receipts what else did they say/do that was untrue?

And for the record, regarding the 'extremist literature' which Mr Moore says is available in many Islamic institutions, who is to decide that it is 'extremist'? Might not an outsider look upon some of the literature available in, for example, Evangelical Christian and Orthodox Jewish bookshops and also say that they contain 'extremist' material too? What remedy does Mr Moore propose for this?

yours faithfully,
Mr Inayat Bunglawala,
Assistant Secretary-General,
Muslim Council of Britain
PO Box 57330,
London
E1 2WJ