Just days after Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced tough new measures to name and shame foreign-based extremists and prevent them coming from abroad to stir up hatred in the UK, firebrand preacher Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad cocked a snook at her new initiative, the Evening Standard reveals.
More than 200 Muslims at a packed public meeting in Tower Hamlets were told by organiser Anjem Choudary: “We have a special surprise, a special treat for you. Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad will be joining us on a live feed from Lebanon.” He added: “As Muslims, we will not submit to any man-made law, any government, or any prime minister – Bush or Brown – or [to] Jacqui Smith. We submit to Allah.”
Choudary, who with Bakri led the fanatical Al-Muhajiroun organisation – notorious for its glorification of terrorism and the 9/11 attacks before its banning and dissolution in 2004 -warmed up the crowd, two Sundays ago, with his own inflammatory rhetoric. “It is our religious obligation to prepare ourselves both physically and mentally and rise up against Muslim oppression and take what is rightfully ours,” he said. “Jihad is a duty and a struggle and an obligation that lies upon the shoulders of us all. We will not rest until the flag of Allah and the flag of Islam is raised above 10 Downing Street.”
To loud cheers of “Allah Akbar” [God is great], he railed: “There are three types of Muslims, those in prison, those of us that are on our way [to prison] and non-practising Muslims. Brothers and sisters, if you do not fear your home being raided by the Kufar [non-believer] police, you are not enforcing the Sharia.”
Later, in front of a huge banner that exhorted “Muslims rise against British oppression”, he introduced Omar Bakri, who was standing by in Lebanon. A giant screen, six-feet high and six-feet wide, had been set up to project the image of the extremist known as “the Tottenham Ayatollah”.
He was refused re-entry to the UK in 2005 as “not conducive to the public good” after vowing that Muslims would “give the West a 9/11 day after day after day”. But when a problem with the live internet video feed failed to yield a picture, Mr. Choudary phoned his colleague from the stage and put the receiver to the microphone. The connection was loud and clear and Bakri spoke for 15 minutes.
Full text article continues here. (Some news sites may require registration)
