Britain 'is haven for terrorists'

From the Times Online, with thanks to He Who Must Not Be Named:

CENTRAL ASIAN governments have accused Britain of providing a haven for members of Islamic organisations alleged to incite violence in their homelands.

Diplomats claim that intelligence services have evidence that the groups raise funds and run propaganda websites from their homes and high street offices in British cities. They have handed over lists of suspect addresses, leaflets and tape recordings of what they claim are ringleaders stirring up hatred against their regimes.

While insurgent groups in the region have proliferated over the past two years, only one, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, is on the Home Office list of 25 outlawed international terrorist organisations. There is growing pressure for Britain to add to that list Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is held responsible for triggering bomb attacks.

One Uzbek diplomat said: “This organisation is proscribed by scores of countries yet in Britain they are allowed to operate”.

Hizb ut-Tahrir campaigns for a single Islamic state, a caliphate, which aims to unite all Muslim countries by peaceful means, then embrace the entire world. Imran Waheed, its spokesman in Britain, said: “We are a political organisation who condemn violence.”

The group is banned in almost all Muslim countries. Turkey and Pakistan have outlawed its members, as has Germany. Dr Waheed said that the ban was being challenged through the courts. In Britain the National Union of Students has barred it from colleges and universities for its anti-Semitism and homophobia.

Posted by Robert at May 25, 2005 12:58 PM
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