A leading Middle East Muslim commentator, Amjad Taha, has warned that Islamic extremists, taking advantage of Britain’s free speech laws and Keir Starmer’s weakness, are now spreading in the United Kingdom, just as they are being forced into retreat in the Middle East itself. The Mail has the story:
Mr Taha said there was a rise in sectarian voting and independent candidates seeking election on a pro-Gaza ticket could help lead to Britain becoming a “global powerbase” for radicals.
Mr Taha, who has 1.6 million followers on X and Instagram, raised concerns about what he described as harmful teaching in schools and local communities.
His claims come as Sir Keir’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner launches a new council on Islamophobia, including a potential official definition of the term – and which some critics have suggested could introduce a ‘blasphemy law’.
The Home Office has responded by saying training was being stepped up under this Government for officials “to spot terrorist ideologies, explicitly Islamist extremism”.
The new body looking into Islamophobia is set to be run by ex-Conservative MP and former Attorney General Dominic Grieve.
It has been lined up to make recommendations on a new definition of Islamophobia that could criminalise certain criticism of the religion – prompting allegations that there could be new curbs on ‘free speech’.
Dr Taj Hargey, a historian, academic and founder of the Oxford Institute for British Islam, said last week: “It is astounding that an unpopular Labour Party is seeking to sacrifice free expression just to placate Islamic fundamentalists.”
And now British-Bahraini author and social media influencer Mr Taha has voiced concerns about growing radical strains in UK society – while suggesting some Middle Eastern states were “rolling back ultra-conservatism”.
Mr Taha, an adviser to Middle Eastern institutions countering extremism, told GB News: “I think you have more extremists in the UK than you have in the Middle East.
“The things that some of the Islamists say in various mosques, and we have been seeing it online the terminology they use the analysis they make statements they actually make, they wouldn’t be able to say it all the way in Afghanistan for example or Iraq.
“The Muslim brotherhood, who are the Islamist who are the main ones who are ruling and controlling various press when it comes to the Muslim society in the UK, they control the whole narrative. And the Muslim brotherhood and the Islamists are the radical Islamists, and they use the freedom of speech in the manner where they will be antisemite in the name of freedom of speech.
“I absolutely stand against that as I think antisemitism is not an opinion but a crime, and a crime against humanity. And once you allow that, on October 7th for example when it happened, the genocide against the Israelis what I saw and what we witnessed is the fact that some Islamists from all the way over here, we saw their voices it was for Hamas.
“And Hamas has a force that carried that genocide in Gaza and also in Israel, it’s actually the armed forces of the Muslim brotherhood.
“Muslim brotherhood for example in my country, the UAE, is banned however it is not banned in the United Kingdom.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in New South Wales, one of the biggest related stories of the last few days has been about two Muslim nurses who made threats to Jewish patients in a video that has gone viral. Despite condemnation from politicians across the spectrum, it appears the two have now been widely supported by certain Muslim groups who see the nurses as the victims of “orchestrated outrage”. The Australian has the story:
Mainstream Muslim bodies and Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir have joined forces to barrack for two Bankstown Hospital nurses who claimed they would kill Israeli patients, saying the healthcare workers were victims of “weaponised antisemitism” and “manufactured political outrage”.
The unlikely alliance – which also includes The Muslim Vote political campaign, its endorsed independent candidates and hard-line Islamic centres and radical preachers – comes after shock footage of NSW Health nurses Ahmad ‘Rashad’ Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh boasting about having killed Israeli patients and vowing to “kill” more ended in their immediate dismissals and sparked an investigation by a state police antisemitic taskforce.
A “united community” communique put together by “Stand 4 Palestine” – the group was established and is largely run by longstanding Hizb ut-Tahrir operatives – slammed what it called “co-ordinated outrage”, claiming the response to the two nurses’ comments was “manufactured” to serve a “political narrative”.
“The most revealing aspect of the reaction to the nurses’ video is not the (footage) itself – but the speed, intensity and uniformity of response from certain political leaders and media outlets,” it read, which was endorsed by more than 50 bodies or leaders, ranging from small mosques to statewide or nationwide groups.
“Outrage is manufactured when it serves a political narrative, with silence deployed when the truth might expose the complicity of those in power.”
The group said the statement was “not about defending inappropriate remarks” but to “push back against double standards and moral manipulation”.
Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia itself is also a signatory, whose British branch was last year banned in the United Kingdom. Other countries that have outlawed the group include Germany, Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several central Asian and Arab nations, among others.
Signatories also included mainstream bodies, like the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils and the Islamic councils of Victoria and WA, but also radical groups, like the Al Madina Dawah Centre and its founder, Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd.
Mr Haddad is being sued in the federal court for vilifying the Jewish community in a string of sermons he and other speakers allegedly made at the Al Madina Dawah, including: calling Jewish people “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, reciting Islamic parables about their killing, labelling them “vile, treacherous people”, and alleging they had their “hands in business and media”, a common antisemitic trope.
The preacher has been vocal of his friendship with now-dead Australians who travelled to fight for the Islamic State in Sydney, including terrorists Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar, and whose now-defunct Al Risalah bookstore was a known hotbed of extremism, frequented by pro-ISIS speakers.
He shares standing as a “prominent individual” on the communique alongside two independents running for federal parliament in the upcoming election: Ziad Basyouny and Ahmed Ouf.
Meanwhile, in Western Australia:
“They made a terrible comment yet are being treated as if they have committed the absolute worst crime imaginable,” Senator [Fatima] Payman said.
“What is the end goal here? What exactly are we trying to achieve? Justice or just public humiliation?”
Both worth reading in full (the Mail and the Australian).
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