Inayat Bunglawala says the Nidal Hasan attack and Hasan’s relationship with Anwar al-Awlaki are being used to press a new ‘witch-hunt’ against UK Islamic organizations and Muslim leaders.
…it should be made clear that those same Muslim organizations that had in the past invited Al-Awlaki to the UK are horrified by his more recent extremism and are well aware of the damaging impact his views could now have on British Muslims. Following Al-Awlaki’s praise for the Fort Hood suspect, some of these UK Muslim organizations (including the Islamic Society of Britain and the Jam`iat Ihyaa’ Minhaaj Al-Sunnah) issued public statements disavowing his latest comments.
However, this was not enough for the new McCarthyists. A group of them — including the Centre for Social Cohesion (whose director, Douglas Murray, advocated in 2006 that “conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”), Shiraz Maher from Policy Exchange, and the pro-Israel blog Harry’s Place — have not been slow in seeking to smear those Islamic organizations that had invited Al-Awlaki to the UK in the past.
These new McCarthyists must be firmly resisted.
Former Hizb ut-Tahrir member-turned-anti-’Islamism’ activist Shiraz Maher responds here.
thabet 12:11 am on November 22, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Shiraz Maher is a ghastly individual.