A senior Muslim cleric who is known as the "Taliban's ideological mentor" has been allowed to enter the UK and address the House of Lords.Fazlur Rehman, the head of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, came to the UK on Wednesday, at the invitation of the High Commission of Pakistan, and was due to address the House of Lords on Thursday.
Earlier this week, the chairman of human rights group Ansar Burney Trust International and Pakistan's former federal minister for human rights, Ansar Burney, asked Home Secretary Theresa May to block Maulana Rehman's entry due to his "religious extremist ideological threat".
Mr Burney said Maulana Rehman's "unquestionable pro-Taliban ideologies and vowed support for the Taliban may potentially carry a great deal of threat to the British society."
Think tank International Crises Group has claimed Muslim seminaries run by his party are used as Taliban recruitment centres and identified Maulana Rehman as the Taliban's "ideological mentor".
He added that if Maulana Rehman is not banned, he will seek judicial review to challenge the permission.
Earlier this year, Ms May banned controversial Muslim preacher Zakir Naik from entering the UK on the basis that his presence was not conducive to the public good.
| Background: According to Wikipedia, Rehman is presently leader of the opposition in Pakistan's Parliament and is rumoured to hold aspirations to be the prime minister of Pakistan one day. And according to this article, Rehman's speech was an appeal to the international community "to pressurise India to withdraw forces from the Occupied Kashmir." "It will be my endeavour to get India to agree to bring an end to the human right violations (there) and release all the prisoners," he said. |