Leicester Mayor Peter Soulsby met with Leicester based Muslim activist Majid Freeman on 11th October, as a representative of the Muslim communities of Leicester following the violent disturbances that took place in that city the previous month.

Following the meeting, the Mayor said that he was commissioning an “Independent Inquiry” into the disturbances, but has already publicly already acknowledged that he believes “imported Hindutva ideology” is partly to blame. This makes a mockery of the independence of such an inquiry, when he has accepted the conclusions put to him by one side – and indeed what a “representative” he chose to listen to! 

Majid Freeman is a name which has come up again and again with regards to the violence as a major instigator. By meeting him in the first place – the Mayor has already made a serious lapse of judgement. Here is a person who was actually a major architect of the disturbances through the spreading of fake news. It is really quite insulting to the Hindu communities of Leicester that the Mayor or the city even found it acceptable to meet with him, let alone accept everything he says without scrutiny.

Some facts:-

Majid Freeman posted a story on twitter about an attempted abduction of a Muslim teenage girl by three Hindu men in Leicester. He posted it, and as a result it was shared many times on different social media platforms. Please click here to BBC story about this. The story was found to be fake, and he did then delete his original tweet. However by this time, the story had been circulated widely amongst Muslims throughout the midlands, who were mobilising with a view to carry out random attacks on Hindus and property owned by Hindus. Leicester Police have stated that fake news – in particular this story about the abduction – seems to have been a major factor in the violence.

Freeman was also on a daily basis posting stories which had the sole effect of inciting Muslims. There are too many such tweets to try to share. Basically he continuously makes far fetched claims linking Hindu youth staying out late, drinking, and urinating on streets (which is simple antisocial behaviour – not political ideology) as a political act of “Hindutva” and linking it with Hindu nationalism in India – thus setting into motion a mobilisation of Muslims.

The claims and links he makes are laughable – but he is quite articulate and many Muslims will accept this, in the absence of any saner voices. Just to demonstrate how ridiculous Freeman’s accounts were – if there were a few Muslims who are out late at night in a given neighbourhood and acting antisocially, it would be ridiculous to link them as representatives of a religious / political ideology. If this was done to Muslims, certainly Majid Freeman would cry “Islamophobia” (and fairly so), yet he does this to Hindus, with a view to add an international and political dimension to a situation.

Furthermore, during the riots themselves, a number of rabble rousing speeches were made by a controversial Islamist named Mohammed Hijab, who came from London up to Leicester for “the event”. Whereas some Muslims can be seen telling him to “drop the mic” because he will just incite young Muslims to violence (which is what he did), Majid Freeman defends Mohammed Hijab’s actions in Leicester on a number of occasions. There are many responsible and saner voices within the Muslim communities of Leicester who didn’t want a known rabble rouser giving hateful speeches, but Majid Freeman was not one of them. 

Majid Freeman also has a controversial history for sympathising with ISIS and Al-Quaeda. A report (https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/HJS-Islamist-Charity-Report.pdf) shows how he is linked to providing both ideological and material support to Jihadists in the Middle East, and has made comments such as Jerusalem would be “conquered by jihad, not by peace”. The daily Telegraph also reported on this (note – subscription only content).

All of the above show that Freeman is not a suitable “representative” to meet with and whose word to accept without more than a grain of salt. In meeting with Majid Freeman and parroting what he has said – the Mayor of Leicester either shows his extreme naivety – or his utter disregard for Hindus of the city.