A radical Muslim group was again threatened with a ban yesterday after one of its leaders defended terrorist attacks on British armed forces overseas. Taji Mustapha, a spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, pledged "support" for attacks on British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
| Still being threatened with being banned, as opposed to being banned. |
"I will stand up and support the right of people whose land is occupied to defend themselves," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
| "I will defend the rights of our splodydopes to explodulate themselves in pizza parlors and city busses!" |
Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) was threatened with proscription by Tony Blair two years ago. The pledge was never carried out because police could not establish that it was a terrorist organisation. However, the law was changed last year to outlaw groups that ''glorify'' terrorism.
| You have an MI5 and you can't prove HT is a terrorist group? Come to Rantburg, we'll help. |
Harriet Harman, the Commons leader, yesterday said this law could be used against HT. "We must be very concerned that we don't have subversion and support for terrorism fomented in this country,'' she said.
| Looks like Glasgow woke a few people up. Better late than never. |
HT has managed to avoid being banned even though its influence has been apparent for some time to jihadi watchers. It has waged an effective propaganda campaign to deny any responsibility for the increasing threat from Islamist terrorists.
| "We know nothing! Nothing! Tell them, Hogan!" |
HT's leaders claim to be nothing more, or less, than a proselytising organisation, spreading the word of Islam, much as evangelical Christians do.
They want to establish a caliphate - a unified Islamic government in the traditional Muslim world, which once stretched as far west as Spain and Portugal.
| Just proselytising, that's all, they'd never use force to establish a caliphate, nope, nor terrorism either, nope, nothing more than the Islamic version of Jehovah's witnesses. Here, read their tracts. Or else ... |
It also opposes the "neo-colonialist'' western control of the Islamic world, in which it includes Israel. In the Commons this week, David Cameron, the Tory leader, said the group fomented anti-semitism and advocated killing Jews.
| 'Neo-colonalist' is a term they picked up from the progressives; it means 'like colonalism in any way we plese', and is used to cover a multitude of sins of the West. Used by pomos to browbeat their political opponents into submission, and the Islamists have seized on the 'submission' part. |
Founded in 1953, Hizb ut-Tahrir claims to have "spread its message" to more than 40 countries and is estimated to have about one million members.
| A fair number of whom are armed ... |
MI5 and the police were asked for evidence to justify banning it but were unable to provide any.
| "We asked 'um, and they said they wasn't terrorists, so we didn't have any proof, yer Honorfulship." |
A report advised that HT did "not directly advocate violence. Indeed membership or sympathy with such an organisation does not in any way presuppose a move towards terrorism". However, the report also said membership of groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir ''may indicate... the possibility of a few of its members being open to gradual consideration of far more extremist doctrine".
| Gradual consideration. Or sudden. |
HT has been active in British universities for 15 years or more. In one study, Anthony Glees, a professor at Brunel University's centre for intelligence and security studies, said its influence among students was important. "Radicalism isn't the same as extremism which isn't the same as terrorism and the number of people who go from one to the other may be very small,'' he said.
''But it only takes a small number to kill a large number of innocent people, including Muslims.''
| Noticed that, did you? Took only 10 to bring down the WTC. |
Ed Husain, a former HT member, whose book The Islamist exposed their methods, called it ''an extremist organisation", which ran a cell structure and indoctrinated its members. Even though it is not a violent group, it is the ideological inspiration for those who would cause trouble.
HT is banned in most Muslim countries, rejected by most mosques in Britain, yet it still has a free rein on university and college campuses.
| Since its agenda appears to be the same as that of gullible pomos and academic loonies -- to bring down the West. |
Julian Lewis, the shadow defence spokesman, said if its leaders were advocating attacks on British troops they should either be tried for treason in Britain or ejected from the country.
An HT spokesman said: ''We accept that our organisation causes the government considerable political and diplomatic discomfort, in that our campaigning against dictators in the Muslim world, many of whom are allies of the government, such as General Musharraf and Presidents Karimov and Mubarak, exposes its hypocrisy.
''But we completely reject the baseless accusation that our organisation calls for the killing of Jews.'' |