The Group has sent a letter to Reading Borough Council Chief Executive Michael Coughlin and Thames Valley Police Steve Kirk to protest local steps taken under the PVE strategy.

“The PVE work relies on a number of volatile terms such as ‘extremism’, ‘violent extremism’ and ‘radicalization’,” the letter reads.

“These terms are undefined but have been used by members of the government to demonize the Muslim community by equating Islamic values with ‘extremism’ or ‘violent extremism’.”

Reading Muslims objected to the adoption of the National Indicator NI35 – a controversial framework which singles out the Muslim community as the main group to look out for in building communities resilient to violent extremism.

They also rejected a new PVE toolkit, which will be provided to school teachers to look out for signs of “radicalization” in pupils.

“That may be prevalent in 5 year old Muslim students, something quite absurd and disturbing.”

Reading, home to 10,000 Muslims, has been picked as a pilot area to apply the government’s PVE strategy.

Under the strategy, 300 officers have been deployed to monitor areas of potential “radicalization” in Muslim areas.

• Disillusioned

Reading Muslims denounced the government’s generalization approach in implementing the anti-extremism strategy.

“Communities don’t commit crimes, individuals do,” said the Muslim Crisis Group.

“However, the Government narrative on the causes of the cycle of violence we see occurring in the context of PVE blames an ‘ideology’ as the overriding cause for people’s radicalization.

“This is in stark contrast to the way that the political troubles in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka was identified.

“This narrative firmly puts the blame for the cycle of violence at the door of Islam and the Muslim community.”

The Muslim group said that the Muslim community has become disillusioned by the PVE.

“We are now faced with an agenda has evolved considerably and is so misguided that it is causing anxiety within the Muslim community,” it said.

Several Muslim organizations are planning to meet next Monday to announce their refusal to cooperate in the anti-extremism strategy.

“(It) has the potential to cause mass alienation and is proving to be counter productive against some of its own stated aims.”

British Muslims, estimated at nearly two million, have been in the eye of storm since the July 2005 bombings, which killed 56 people, including four Muslim bombers.