Mohammed Shafiq

In August 2005, he became press spokesman of the Ramadhan Foundation, a group aimed at helping young Muslims in the United Kingdom and fostering interfaith dialogue.[7] Whilst representing the Foundation, he has become a regular face in British media, commenting on British-Muslim issues and perspectives.[8][9][10] [11]

Shafiq was the project manager for the first Muslim Unity Convention, held in the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks in 2005 at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.[12] He was a member of the organising committee of the second International Muslim Unity Convention held in October 2009 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[13][14]

In interviews and in published articles regarding the Rochdale sex trafficking gang, Shafiq has made controversial statements regarding members of the Pakistani community who had been involved in grooming girls, blaming them for harbouring a racist attitude towards white girls.[19] He observed there was an over representation of Pakistani men convicted of child sexual exploitation and on-street gang grooming in which the majority of victims are white.[19]

In October 2013 Shafiq was alerted by anti-terrorist police that he and a number of other prominent Muslim figures in the UK had been targeted by a propaganda video created by Al-Shabaab, the terrorist group responsible for the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya. The video branded Shafiq and other Muslims for "selling out"[3] and had urged jihadists in the UK to take action, citing the murder of Lee Rigby as an example to follow.[4][20] Shafiq was later offered special police protection by the police.[4][20]

In January 2014 Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Maajid Nawaz, a secular Muslim, posted a "Jesus and Mo" image on his Twitter account.[25] The image depicts Jesus saying "Hey" and Mohammed saying "How ya doin'".[26][27] Shafiq then posted on Twitter "We will notify all muslim organisations in the UK of his despicable behaviour and also notify Islamic countries."[28][29] Shafiq further Tweeted "Ghustaki Rasool Quilliam," so linking Nawaz's anti-extremist think tank with an Urdu term which means "defamer of the prophet",[30] which under Islamic law is a crime that carries a death penalty.[31] Maajid Nawaz has since received a number of death threats.[25][29][32] Shafiq also reportedly organized an on-line petition to Nick Clegg to have Nawaz removed as a Liberal Democrat candidate,[30] though when the organizers of the petition, named as SA et al., were contacted by the press they distanced themselves from Shafiq.[33] The online petition asking Clegg to suspend Nawaz eventually had 22, 927 supporters,[34] a counter petition calling for Clegg to discipline Shafiq received 8,375 supporters.[5][27][35]