Patrick Mercer has been MP for Newark since 2001 and is a former shadow minister for homeland security.
After the July 2005 bombings, which killed 52 innocent British citizens and injured over 700, Tony Blair announced that we would immediately proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir and its successor organisation, Al Mujahiroun. To date, neither organisation has been banned and Al Muhajiroun is planning to conduct a debate this evening for the first time since 2004, now that it has appointed its new British leader. This Government should concentrate less on rhetoric and more on reality and taking the action which is needed to protect this country and its people from terrorism.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extremist organisation that poisons the minds of young Muslims against Jews, Christians and other ‘unbelievers’ and some who have been through its ranks have ended up in Al Qaeda. David Cameron reminded Gordon Brown at his first Prime Minister’s Question Time in July 2007 that the Government had repeatedly pledged to ban it and yet no further action has been taken.
Al Mujahiroun used to be led by banned preacher, Omar Bakri Muhammad, who once described the September 11th hijackers as ‘The Magnificent 19’ and said he wished to see the ‘flag of Islam’ flying over Downing Street. This group was also responsible for organising the despicable protests in Luton when our men from the 2nd Battalion of The Royal Anglian Regiment paraded through the town centre.
Why isn’t this Government taking the action needed to ban these people from preaching and practising their hatred?
Al Mujahiroun has little support in the wider Muslim community and has operated under various different names over the last five years. The Home Office began to talk about banning al-Muhajiroun in 2004 so its leader, Omar Bakri Muhammad, formally shut it down and fled to Lebanon after being banned from entering the UK by then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke. However, it then became fragmented into two groups: the Saviour Sect and al-Ghurabaa which both later became two of the 45 proscribed organisations (under The Terrorism Act 2000 & 2006).
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