Hizb ut Tahrir or not Tahrir? (From Haringey Independent)

Hizb ut Tahrir or not Tahrir?

8:26am Tuesday 14th August 2007

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The debate is rumbling on it seems about Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir and whether they should have been allowed to hold their conference at Alexandra Palace just over a week ago.

What do you do when a group not banned in this country (a country that advocates and promotes free speech, I might add) want to run a closed conference in a London building?

Let me start by saying I am in no way supporting them and if I dare add my tuppence worth I would go so far as to say that they should be banned in this country just like they are in Germany among many others and in most University campuses across the UK.

This isn't over-zealous melodrama about a group merely expressing a point of view. It is genuine concern about an ideology that is incompatible with the views most people in the western world hold.

It scares me that they are given a platform to express themselves and I am sorry if that is not politically correct.

I know they strongly deny being anti-Semitic, racist or homophobic. I know they strongly deny being advocates of Jihad (holy war). I also know that Tony Blair and David Cameron did not toy with the idea of banning them here too for nothing.

What should the bosses at Ally Pally have done? Perhaps nothing more than what they did do, which was allow Hizb to come and hold their heads down accepting the criticism. But maybe the criticism shouldn't be laid against Ally Pally but rather against our government for failing to stop this group in their tracks like so many others have done before them.

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