Dr. Chris Allen is Associate Professor, Hate Crime Expert, School of Criminology, University of Leicester. According to the news portal The Conversation UK, Dr.Allen has been “researching Islamophobia, hate crime, the far-right, counter-extremism and counter-terror, and wider issues relating to the ‘problematisation’ of Muslim communities.” He was also the British Government advisor on anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia and member of All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia. He was also involved in developing the working definition of Islamophobia by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims definition of Islamophobia was to classify Islamophobia as a form of racism. This definition of Islamophobia was rejected by the British government.
Dr.Chris Allen shot to fame after Mayor of Leicester, Peter Soulsby, appointed an enquiry commission to look into the anti-Hindu violence in Leicester in 2022. Dr.Allen was appointed head of the Commission but stepped down after Hindu groups expressed outrage over his appointment due his deep involvement with the Muslim community and his apparent bias against Hindus. According to a BBC news report, Dr.Chris Allen expressed “surprise” that Hindus objected to his appointment and decided to boycott his enquiry commission.
Former Downing Street chief of staff, Nick Timothy in a X post said Allen’s “writing shows his conclusions are already pre-judged. In short he blames British Hindus and suggests reports of Muslim involvement are “Islamophobic”.”
Before his appointment to the enquiry Commission, Dr.Chris Allen took to writing his opinion on Leicester violence. The piece titled “Leicester’s unrest is a problem for the whole city, not just Hindu and Muslim communities” for online news portal, The Conversation, Dr.Allen absolved Muslims of Leicester of violence despite clear instigation from Muslim influencers like Majid Freeman, Mohammed Hijab, Ali Dawah, social media doxxing of Hindus, and spreading rumours about Hindu and blamed Hindus for the violence. He writes “Despite there being no evidence to support such an assumption, research shows that a key trope of Islamophobia is the conflation of all things Islam with extremism. ” He further opines “[Hindutva] This far-right ideology promotes hatred towards all non-Hindu religious minorities and Muslims in particular.”
Counter-terrorism group, Henry Jackson Society in their report, Leicester: “Hindutva” and the Creation of a False Narrative, have noted that their investigations in the violence found no Hindutva extremist links where as known ISIS and Taliban supporters instigated violence against Hindus.
British political analyst, Chris Blackburn raised serious concerns over the appointment of Dr.Chris Allen to led the enquiry.
Blackburn notes that Dr.Allen deliberately didn’t report the rumours of kidnappings and mosque attacks by Hindus floated by Islamists and that Dr.Allen blamed Hindus right from the start, giving a clean-chit to Islamists like Majid Freeman, Mohammed Hijab, Shakeel Afsar and the likes.
Recently, Dr.Chris Allen participated in Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative discussion on “Hindutva in Britian”.
In the seminar Dr.Chris Allen shockingly blames “those within the Hindutva movement or those who adhere to the ideologies of that” for a “…..campaign of hate targeted at me and went on for good number of months and indeed it continues to.” He then goes on to say that the “so much of this aligns with the findings from the Bridge Institute and Community Policy Forum.” Point to note, both the Bridge Institute and Community Policy Forum are both Islamic supremacist organisations. Bridge Initiative is funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia while Community Policy Forum works for British Muslim community. He further goes on to equate Hindu nationalism with far-right British radicals. According to Dr.Chris Allen “Jai Shri Ram” is “synonymous with Hindutva violence in India”. He then goes on to say that tropes of Islamophobia shifts the narrative away from the actual threat posed by the Hindutva movement and to those who adhere to the ethno-nationalist ideology. Dr.Allen repeats what he wrote in The Conversation, that there was no evidence of Islamist extremism. Dr. Allen goes on to legitimise Islamic extremism by arguing that Muslims behaving in a certain way in India is because of Hindutva. He actually said all the tropes used against him forcing him to step down from the panel constitutes Islamophobia. He ends his introduction saying Hindutva movement has the propensity to use violence to achieve their goals.
On the 29th of October 2022, when Dr.Chris Allen deactivated his account because of outrage by Hindu groups, we posted a X post saying he’ll “blame #Hindus/#Hindutva for bullying and intimidating him.” That’s exactly what he did when the interviewer asked him on the attempts to silence him by Hindus. Dr. Chris Allen said “it was completely successful….successful in silencing me as well”. Dr.Allen says he couldn’t have produced an academic piece of research when Hindu groups said they’ll boycott the review commission because of his partiality.
Talking on the role of social media Dr.Chris Allen plays victim when he says how he was targeted by accounts from India with Hindu names, Hindu symbols and Indian flag. What Dr.Allen refuses to say how Islamists used the same social media to spread rumours about Hindus kidnapping Muslims girls, Hindus attacking a mosque was used as an instigator to attack Hindus.
Dr.Chris Allen says he and others were pressured to not speak up by Hindutva followers.
In March 2023 Dr.Chris Allen published a piece “Extremism in the UK: new definitions threaten human and civil rights” where he said UK government’s definition of extremism “reinforces Islamophobic tropes” and that the new definition of extremism is a threat to human and civil rights.
In 2010, Dr.Chris Allen was voted in the world’s Muslim Power List. Dr.Allen was voted in “Education and Academia” section.
Dr.Chris Allen has written extensively on anti-Muslim hate crimes for The Huffington Post, The Conversation.
Dr.Chris Allen is one the several academics who signed an Open Letter on Islamophobia to classify Islamophobia as a form of racism.
Dr. Chris Allen along with one of the instigators of Leicester violence and friend of Majid Freeman, Riaz Khan, was seen having a friendly conversation on 9/11 terrorist attack on World Trade Towers, where Khan says. “9/11 was a set-up” and Dr.Allen is seen laughing and agreeing to it.
Dr. Chris Allen also spoke about terror attacks as “false flag events”.
In 2016, Dr.Chris Allen along with other far-left academics and Islamists signed a letter “Students Not Suspects” against UK government’s efforts to prevent Muslims from taking to radicalisation and terrorism.
Dr. Chris Allen is also known to have hosted Islamists supporting terrorists and terror groups.
Dr.Chris Allen used to tweet using the handle @DrChrisAllen. He de-activated his account after the controversy broke out. Since then he has resumed using X but has locked his account.
Below are posts of Islamists supporting the appointment of Dr.Chris Allen to lead Leicester enquiry.
STOP HINDU HATE ADVOCACY NETWORK 