THE ISLAMIST group Islam4UK, and its “parent” organisation, al-Muhajiroun, will be banned under new legislation outlawing the “glorification” of terrorism, British home secretary Alan Johnson announced yesterday.
Islam4UK planned a march through the English market town of Wootton Bassett where honouring of British war dead has become customary.
The order, which will come into effect tomorrow, will make it a criminal offence to be a member of either of the groups, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
“I have today laid an order which will proscribe al-Muhajiroun, Islam4UK, and a number of the other names the organisation goes by,” Mr Johnson said. Other names are Call to Submission, Islamic Path and London School of Sharia. The group is already proscribed under two other names – al-Ghurabaa and the Saved Sect or the Saviour Sect.
Mr Johnson said proscription was “a tough but necessary power to tackle terrorism”, adding that it was “not a course we take lightly”.
The decision, based on months of monitoring the output of websites and comments by senior figures, will have to be endorsed by parliament. Al-Muhajiroun was founded by Omar Bakri Muhammad and Anjem Choudary, and has been operating in Britain since the mid-1980s.
The group became notorious for praising the September 11th attacks in 2001. Bakri was banned from Britain by former home secretary Charles Clarke in August 2005 on grounds that his presence in the country was “not conducive to the public good”.
At the same time, the Home Office announced its intention to ban the group. But it disappeared from view before relaunching itself in June last year.
The Saviour sect and al-Ghurabaa were proscribed under the 2000 Terrorism Act.
Islam4UK has called off its planned march through Wootton Bassett. It said it had “successfully highlighted the plight of Muslims in Afghanistan globally”.
The group said if their organisation and al-Muhajiroun were banned, “another platform with a new name will arise to continue to fulfil these divine objections until the sharia has been implemented”.
Legislation exists to automatically ban any “successor” organisations set up by proscribed groups.