Campaigners from the Centre for Social Cohesion have pledged to seek an arrest warrant for Dr Ibrahim Moussawi, an Islamic extremist, who is due to visit Britain this March.
The think-tank said the Home Office would be “beyond hypocrisy” if it allowed Dr Ibrahim Moussawi into Britain just weeks after barring Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, because of his alleged anti-Muslim views. Dr Moussawi is a spokesman for the Lebanese-based militant group Hizbollah, the military arm of which is banned in Britain as a terrorist organisation.
Douglas Murray, director of the CSC, has written to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, warning her that he will instruct lawyers to seek an arrest warrant for Dr Moussawi if he is allowed into the country. The think-tank has already sought advice from barrister Paul Diamond, an expert in religious affairs law, on using war crimes legislation and a legal precedent from 2004 to seek, independently, an arrest warrant from a magistrate.
Mr Murray said: “This is the deepest hypocrisy, in fact, it is worse than hypocrisy on behalf of the British government. The government clearly do not have a grip on this. Britain is still a place where terrorists and terrorist supporters can come to incite and recruit.”
Dr Moussawi is due to address a conference at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, on March 25, on the subject of political Islam.
In its letter to Ms Smith, the Centre for Social Cohesion said: “It is the position of the Home Office that individuals are banned from entry in the United Kingdom if ‘they stir up tension and provoke violence to others’. Dr Moussawi would threaten community harmony and clearly breach this condition. If Dr Moussawi arrives in the UK we will instruct counsel to seek a warrant for his arrest.”
Sunday Telegraph, 8 March 2009
Well, Douglas Murray would know all about threatening community harmony, wouldn’t he? This is the man who in 2006 told the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in the Netherlands:
“It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop…. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition.”
If Ibrahim Moussawi was intending to visit the UK to make a similar speech directed against the Jewish community (“conditions for Jews in Europe must be made harder across the board”) it would be quite right to ban him. But of course he’s not.