The leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance on Newham Council, Councillor Alan Craig has called the controversial Muslim group behind the proposed Olympics mega-mosque "secretive" after they refused to attend a Muslim-organised public debate on Friday.

|PIC1|Cllr Craig, who spoke at the meeting, labelled the Tablighi Jamaat "controversial" and "secretive", and added that the group's no-show was "a classic illustration of Tablighi Jamaat's rejection of Western democratic values and their secretive, isolationist ways of conducting themselves".

He thanked Muslim educational group Islamic Circles for organising the "key open meeting" and Q-News Muslim journalist Abdul-Rehman Malik for chairing it.

Cllr Craig assured that the Tablighi Jamaat were unlikely to encounter any public hostility at the meeting because of its distinctly Muslim format. The meeting started with Islamic invocations and finished in time for Muslim evening prayers, he said.

Tablighi Jamaat has made public details of the mega-mosque project and revealed its intentions to complete building before the 2012 Olympic Games in London in order to create an Islamic Quarter throughout the Games.

"It will have a huge impact on the local community. Yet they refuse to attend a legitimate Muslim-organised public meeting to debate the issues. What planet are they on?" said Cllr Craig.

The meeting, held at Ithaca House in Stratford on Friday evening, was "very successful", the CPA said.

|PIC2|According to the CPA, supporters and opponents robustly debated the issues for two hours, although no vote was taken. Supporters were led by Abdul Khaliq Mian, a former project manager of the mega-mosque speaking in a personal capacity, while opponents were led by Cllr Craig.

He continued: "We can only conclude that their hidden arrogance is as large as their secretive ambitions. They reject face-to-face public debate and scrutiny of the issues. This simply feeds the silly superficial knee-jerk reactions of those like Ken Livingstone on the left and the Islamophobic racist hostility of the BNP on the right.

"It is left to the sensible moderate middle - non-Muslim and Muslim - to engage with the issues and each other, and to continue to challenge Tablighi Jamaat about their mega-mosque plans," concluded Cllr Craig.