In this mailing:
- Samuel Westrop: UK Charity Commission Permits Hamas Charity
- Mudar Zahran: Is the British Establishment Legitimizing Apartheid?
UK Charity Commission Permits Hamas Charity
by Samuel Westrop
October 4, 2013 at 5:00 am
October 4, 2013 at 5:00 am
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Since the
time that the Charity Commission chairman promised to punish groups which
promote extremism, Interpal has nevertheless organized a number of events that
once again, demonstrate that extremist organizations continue with impunity to
abuse their charitable status.
On 12 September, William Shawcross, chairman of Britain's Charity
Commission, addressed a crowd of leading experts and representatives from the
British charitable and financial sectors, and announced
that:We are stepping up our work to prevent and tackle terrorist abuse of charities. The misuse of charities for terrorist purposes represents a despicable inversion of everything charity stands for and we will fight that without quarter. And we have put out very clear guidance to charities about extremist and controversial speakers. It is unacceptable for charities to promote the views of individuals who promote violence and terrorism.
We should welcome, then, the promise by Shawcross that pro-terror organizations will no longer be free to employ the moral monopoly afforded by charitable status to shroud their extremist activities.
Unfortunately, however, charities accused of extremism do not appear to be concerned by any of the proposed changes. Interpal, for example, a leading British charity supported by a number of British politicians and cabinet members, is, in the United States, designated a terrorist organization. A comprehensive profile of Interpal, written by this author and published by the Gatestone Institute in January 2013, examined the charity's links to terrorist groups as well as its trustees and staff's expressed support for extremist ideas.
Interpal trustee Essam
Yusuf exchanges warm greetings with Hamas terror leader Ismail Haniyeh, in
Gaza.
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Since the time that the Charity Commission chairman promised to punish groups that promote extremism, Interpal has organized a number of events that, once again, demonstrate that extremist organizations continue to abuse their charitable status without sanction.
On 21 September, Interpal hosted an event entitled "Courage and Compassion in Crisis" at the Queens Park Community Centre in Bradford. The speaker was Uthman Lateef, an Islamist preacher who holds a Masters degree in "Crusader Studies" from Damascus University. In one audio recording obtained by the Gatestone Institute, Lateef advocates the violent destruction of the non-Muslim world and expresses support for convicted terrorists.
In 2009, Lateef spoke on the same platform as the late Al Qaeda leader Anwar Awlaki at the London Muslim Centre (in 2011, Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike). Lateef claims that the Dajjal [Anti-Christ] will be a Jew, who will lead 70,000 Jewish soldiers in an apocalyptic attempt to destroy the Muslim people.
Lateef is a vocal supporter of Muhammad Hamid, whom he describes as "our dear brother … locked up unfairly under false terror charges." Hamid is a convicted "terrorist instructor" who is a serving a prison sentence after running military-style camps for would-be suicide bombers and other terrorists. Hamid, who called himself 'Osama bin London', was involved with the 2005 tube bombers as well as the Woolwich killer Michael Adebolajo.
The Queens Park Community Centre, at which the event was held, is a government-run and taxpayer-funded building.
Lateef's talk raised £1600 for Interpal's work, which, as previously illustrated, includes support for the Palestinian terror organization, Hamas.
For October 6th, for example, Interpal has announced yet another event that leaves Lateef's talk looking positively docile.
Speakers include:
Abdul Hakim Quick – a preacher from the Islamic Education and Research Academy, who has called upon God to "clean and purify Al-Aqsa from the filth of the Yahood [Jews]" and to "clean all of the lands from the filth of the Kafirun [non-believers]." He has also stated: "They said 'what is the Islamic position [on homosexuality]?' And I told them. Put my name in the paper. The punishment is death. And I'm not going to change this religion."
Murtazah Khan – a British Islamist preacher who teaches at Al Noor Primary School, a Muslim school in London. Khan openly expressed hatred for Christians and Jews: "Those whom the wrath of Allah is upon, is the Jews, is the Christians. We have become Jews in our clothing, Jews in our eating, Jews in everything that we do … And people are still not waking up to understand the fact that these people are enemies towards us."
In a lecture entitled, "Death and the Grave," Khan incited British Muslims to violence, and praised "martyrdom" as exalted in Islam: "The ultimate form [of martyrdom] for a man is to die in the way of Allah. That's why it is always referred to as qital. Fighting, not jihad, as some people try to understand it, because jihad translates as struggle, but the real meaning is qital, to fight." Khan supports suicide bombers in Israel, Iraq and Chechnya, and advocates the murder of homosexuals.
Ibrahim Hewitt – one of Interpal's trustees. Hewitt has said: "By their behaviour in vandalising and destroying Mosques and Churches, the Jews have demonstrated that they cannot be entrusted with the sanctity and security of this Holy Land". In a pamphlet written by Hewitt, entitled What Does Islam Say?, he advocates the death penalty for apostates and adulterers, and demands that homosexuals suffer "severe punishments" for their "great sin" [Ibrahim Hewitt, What does Islam Say?, The Muslim Educational Trust, April 2004].
Muslim Belal – a "performance poet," whose name is actually Ashley Chin. In 2005, he performed at the Global Peace and Unity event, a large conference organized by the Muslim Brotherhood in London. In 2010, The Daily Telegraph reported that at the conference, "items glorifying terrorism were on open sale… Also available were 'shahada headbands' as worn by many Palestinian suicide bombers… The headbands contain the personal testimony of the suicide bombers." Belal composes nasheeds [an Islamic song without instruments] that promote fundamentalist Islam, one of which expresses support for Aafia Siddiqui, a convicted murderer who, when arrested, was found with documents planning chemical attacks against civilian targets. During her trial, Siddiqui tried to fire her lawyers because they were Jews, who she claims are "cruel, ungrateful, back-stabbing."
Abu Usamah ad-Dhahabi – an Imam at the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham. Dhahabi (also spelled Thahabi) has expressed support for Osama bin Laden and has said: "If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered, that's my freedom of speech, isn't it?" Dhahabi, according to a report by the Centre for Social Cohesion, also "advocates holy war in an Islamic state; preaches hatred against non-Muslims; that apostasy and homosexuality are punishable by death; and that women are inferior to men."
In the wake of promises by the Charity Commission to crack down on extremism, why does Interpal feel able to organize these events and promote these speakers, despite its status as a charitable organization? Interpal is probably betting that the Commission will never obtain the political support to act effectively. However keen Shawcross might be to challenge extremists' abuse of charitable status, the legitimacy afforded to extremist groups both politically and demographically means that effective sanctions against extremist groups are unlikely to be realized.
Even leading politicians who have directly observed the violence that results from extremist groups refuse to act. Shawcross mentioned in his speech, for example, that, "In the last decade, student groups in London Universities frequently invited the Islamist propagandist Anwar Al Awlaki to speak in person or by video. It was he whose sermons incited a young British Muslim student to try to murder her MP, Stephen Timms. It was a mercy Mr Timms survived her knife attack."
Stephen Timms, just six months after being stabbed by this radicalized Islamist, declared his support for the Al Muntada Trust, a Salafi charity accused by Nigerian media of funding Boko Haram, a terrorist group affiliated to Al Qaeda. Al Muntada regularly hosts events and conferences featuring speakers such as Muhammad Al Arifi, who encourages jihad against "non-believers," and believes that "devotion to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defence of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honour for the believer."
Will the Charity Commission finally be able to shut down those charities that promote extremism and whose trustees express support for terror groups? Or is it all, once again, just empty rhetoric?
Related Topics: United
Kingdom | Samuel Westrop
Is the British Establishment Legitimizing Apartheid?
by Mudar Zahran
October 4, 2013 at 4:00 am
October 4, 2013 at 4:00 am
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Permitting
the niqab in the British legal and educational systems not only further
legitimizes Islamist fundamentalism, but also opens the door for enforced
apartheid: veiled women would keep looking at unveiled women as different or
even immoral, while Muslim men would look at veiled women as dehumanized
creatures to be isolated from the world by the veil. The government would not
only limit the ability of British Muslims wishing to integrate into civil
society, but worse, it would officially reinforce the view that women wearing a
veil are indeed inferior.
Is the British establishment giving in to a harmful aspect of Islamic
fundamentalism? On 16 September, a British judge said a Muslim defendant could
wear the veil for all parts of her trial, expect when giving evidence to the
jury. According
to the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, the judge's decision made
"legal history" .The judge also said the defendant did not have to testify in open court with her face uncovered. Instead, she may choose to give evidence via live video link or behind a screen shielding her from the wider courtroom, with only the judge, jurors and her counsel able to see her face. He also ordered that there be no artist's sketch of the defendant while her face is uncovered.
In addition, Judge Murphy's decision was at odds with a previous ruling; in March last year a judge at the same court told a woman wearing a niqab that she could not sit as a juror for an attempted murder trial.
The judge's decisions came after the defendant -- a Muslim convert -- claimed it was against her beliefs to allow any man other than her husband to see her face -- even though she only started wearing the veil last May.
Jack Straw, British Parliament member and former Home Secretary wrote an article in which he confirmed: "I also spoke to a national group of distinguished Islamic scholars and learnt that the injunction to wear the veil did not come directly from the Prophet Mohammed but was based upon a much later interpretation of the message of the Koran."
What Mr. Straw said is right. Not only that, but Islamic Sharia law bans women from wearing the niqab in Mecca during worshiping rituals. A hadith (teachings of Muhammad) says: "a woman in Mecca is not allowed to wear a niqab nor gloves." This text was confirmed by Islamic scholars as Saheeh [exact] by renowned Islamic Scholar Al-Albani [Al-Sahih Al-Jami'i, number 7445].
Women who want to wear niqab in British courtrooms and schools, then, comfortably ignore the fact that they are not allowed to do so in Mecca?
On 11 September; Birmingham Metropolitan College was forced to drop its campus ban on the niqab, a rule since 2005. This reversal came after an anonymous prospective student complained to her local paper; she said she was being discriminated against by the college because of the ban on the niqab. Nonetheless, the college had to drop the ban after Islamists in the UK launched an online petition attracting 9,000 signatures for protests against the college,
The ban had originally been in place for security reasons, to make sure "students were always 'easily identifiable.'" The ban also included hoodies and hats, and therefore did not target either Muslims or the veil in particular.
Since security concerns over the niqab can be justified, as several attacks have been carried out by criminals wearing a niqab, the college therefore compromised the security of its staff and students in to appease Islamist fundamentalists.
In February of 2013, a 20 year old Victoria's Secret's worker was scarred for life and nearly blinded when a niqab-wearing attacker threw acid in her face as she walked home from work. Her attacker has not been identified yet because he or she was wearing a niqab.
Further, on 5 May 2010, two men wearing niqabs threatened guards outside a British bank and ran off with a box full of cash.
In addition to security concerns, tolerating the niqab in the British legal and educational systems would raise more legal dilemmas, for example: Will niqab-wearing women want their faces not shown in their passports' photos and driving licenses?
The Conservative Party's backbencher in the British parliament, Dr. Sarah Wollaston, said the veils were "deeply offensive," were "making women invisible" and called for the niqab to be banned in schools and colleges. She said: "It would be a perverse distortion of freedom if we knowingly allowed the restriction of communication in the very schools and colleges which should be equipping girls with skills for the modern world. We must not abandon our cultural belief that women should fully and equally participate in society."
As a practicing Muslim, I fully agree with Dr. Wollaston.
The niqab does not seem to have any foundations in Islamic texts; it rather seems to have come from fundamentalist Islamism, which looks down on women both in its religious texts and its unequal justice regarding women its application of Sharia law.
Permitting the niqab in the British legal and educational systems, therefore, not only further legitimizes Islamist fundamentalism, but also opens the door for enforced apartheid, in which veiled women would keep looking at unveiled British women as different or even immoral, while British Muslim men would look at women as dehumanized creatures to be isolated from the world by the veil.
Such a fundamentalist view -- if legitimized by the British establishment -- would not only seriously limit the ability of British Muslims to integrate into British civil society, but worse, worse, it would reinforce even more emphatically an official view to British women wearing the veil that they are indeed inferior. In officially hardening this view that a woman's worth is lower than that of a man -- in men's eyes, in society's eyes, and in the eyes of these girls and women themselves -- the British government would be committing a horrendous injustice.
As a Muslim living in the UK, I believe British Muslims have not been successful in integrating into the British society; if the niqab were to be allowed officially at schools and courts, British Muslims would fail to integrate even further.
The UK must not give in to fundamentalists who tamper with the British way of life and thereby make it even harder for moderate Muslims who do want to belong and integrate.
While freedom of religious practice is held dearly by British laws, and should be, the British legal and educational systems must not be compromised by Islamist ideology, which is deemed extreme and oppressive by so many Muslims.
Related Topics: United
Kingdom | Mudar Zahran
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