“Hizb ut-Tahrir does not espouse violence even against dictatorial Arab governments, much less against western states. If Britain bans such an organisation even though it is not supporting terrorism, it will be an echo of what the US government did from the late 1940s amid McCarthyist paranoia. Then Communist party members were named and blacklisted, foreign-born members deported, leaders put on trial for plotting the overthrow of the government – though the US government never banned the Communist party outright.”

Natasha Walter in the Guardian, 21 September 2005