A man jailed for his support for terrorist group Islamic State has been banned from being involved in running schools.
Mohammed Mizanur Rahman is now barred from holding management positions in private schools and being a state school governor under a prohibition direction issued by the education secretary Damian Hinds.
Rahman, an associate of radical preacher Anjem Choudary, was previously a proprietor of an unregistered school, Siddeeq Academy in east London, which closed in 2015 following his arrest and an Ofsted inspection. He was jailed in 2016 for inviting support for ISIS and a string of other offences.
The government has a duty to protect children from dangerous influences and Mizanur Rahman, who has been convicted under the terrorism act, quite clearly has no place in our schools
He is understood to be the third person ever to banned from being a school governor.
The order, made on January 21 but only published today, states that Rahman has been blocked from the roles because he was convicted of inciting racial hatred, solicitation to murder and inviting support for a proscribed terrorist group.
“He also engaged in social media activity that was aimed at undermining fundamental British values and, in addition, was so inappropriate that, in the opinion of the secretary of state, it makes Mr Rahman unsuitable to take part in the management of an independent school,” it said.
Rahman was convicted at the Old Bailey in 2016 alongside Choudary after backing ISIS in an oath of allegiance published online. Both men were jailed for five-and-a-half years and sentenced to a notification order lasting 15 years, meaning they have to tell police if their addresses change.
Rahman was released on bail last year after serving around half of his sentence. Following his release, he was informed of the DfE’s intention to bar him, but he made no representations, a government spokesperson confirmed.
This is thought to be only the third time anyone has been banned from being a school governor.
The DfE issued the first ever ban in 2015 to Tahir Alam, the former chair of governors at Park View Educational Trust in Birmingham, which was at the heart of the Trojan Horse scandal – a supposed Islamist plot to take over schools.
The letter to Alam, which he passed on to the The Guardian, said he had engaged in conduct “aimed at undermining the fundamental British values”.
The second ban was issued in 2017 to Waseem Yaqub, the former chair of governors at Birmingham’s Al-Hijrah School, who was sacked in 2014 after Ofsted blasted the governance at the school and placed it in special measures. He was subsequently banned from the school site.
However Yaqub was not banned from being a governor until three years later, prompting him to call the decision a “witch hunt” against him.
A DfE spokesperson said: “The government has a duty to protect children from dangerous influences and Mizanur Rahman, who has been convicted under the terrorism act, quite clearly has no place in our schools.
“We will always act swiftly and decisively to safeguard our young people and this order is evidence of that.”
Rahman can appeal the direction to the first tier tribunal within three months of being informed of the decision.
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