A group of UK scholars in Islamic studies has warned that the Government's terrorism legislation risks fostering extremism by driving debate underground.
Yasir Suleiman, professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Edinburgh University, said: "If the new Terrorism Act is interpreted in a very draconian way, it would mean we would not be able to carry out some of our research according to standards regarded as important for its integrity. The feeling was that if we don't make that public space available, these debates start to go underground and there is no way of tracking them."