A man who organised members of the Muslim community to boycott South Yorkshire police after the horrors of the grooming scandal were revealed has been given an MBE for “services to integration” and “cohesion”. It is not known who nominated Muhbeen Hussain for the gong after he previously called on Muslims in Rotherham to “take all the necessary action to protect ourselves” and sever ties with local law enforcement.
Mr Hussain made the call in October 2015, just a year after it was revealed police had failed to investigate thousands of allegations of abuse and rape of children and young girls in the former mining town. At the time his campaign group warned: “Any Muslim groups or institutions in Rotherham that do not adhere to this policy of disengagement will also be boycotted by the Muslim community.”
Speaking to the BBC when he was pushing for the boycott, Mr Hussain said there was an attempt to “scapegoat” Muslims and that the police had failed to protect the community from the far right.
It’s since been admitted by senior former government figures that some departments and local agencies did not want to reveal the scale of the grooming scandal to journalists.
Months earlier an inquiry by Alexis Jay found with Rotherham social services “there was a widespread perception that messages conveyed by some senior people in the council and also the police, were to ‘downplay’ the ethnic dimensions of [child sexual exploitation]”.
Mr Hussain now runs the allparty parliamentary group on British Muslims. He holds a House of Commons pass sponsored by Naz Shah, the MP for Bradford West. Mr Hussain’s MBE for “political services to integration cohesion and to British society” was announced last month.
Sir John Jenkins, a senior fellow at the Policy Exchange think tank who served as a UK ambassador in the Middle East, told the Sunday Times he felt giving Mr Hussain an honour for promoting “cohesion” seemed to “discredibt” the honours system.
He told the paper: “Mr Hussain’s pending award of the MBE brings the system into discredit. The government should review the system of due diligence applied to those being awarded honours to understand how Mr Hussain’s prior activity in boycotting the police was overlooked and to implement steps to avoid such awards in future.”
The publication reports Mr Hussain has acknowledged the grooming scandal involving British Pakistani males, and noted that British Muslim Youth, co-founded by Mr Hussain, organised one of the first demonstrations against “these criminals that were claiming to be from our community”.
A statement from Mr Hussain published by the Sunday Times said: “My record in countering extremism and terrorism from the age of 14, which has included speaking out against grooming gangs including those of Pakistani origin, leading the first demonstration against such criminals and working to break barriers between intrafaith and interfaith communities, speaks for itself.
“I have a distinguished track record in building bridges for communities and I was delighted and honoured to be offered an MBE in the forthcoming King’s birthday honours in recognition of this work. I look forward to continuing to work on community cohesion and interfaith understanding going forward.”