Rhumba, Són Montuno, Guaracha, Mambo, Cha cha cha, Sharia, Khalifa, Shehada. “Hardliners try to lead Quakers a merry dance,” from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Interested:
A HARDLINE Islamist group attempted to book a conference at a Quaker meeting house by disguising itself as a Latin American dance organisation.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which Tony Blair plans to ban as an extremist organisation, had booked Friends Meeting House in Central London using the name Salsa Bill Publishing House.
The group, which describes itself as a non-violent political party seeking to establish an Islamic state, had called a national conference to be attended by 1,000 followers on Sunday. But the Quakers said yesterday that they had cancelled the booking and refunded the fee because they were unhappy that insufficient details and contact information had been provided.
A Quaker spokeswoman said: “We are a pacifist movement and any group which books with us is expected to follow our guidelines.”
A spokesman for Hizb-ut-Tahrir said the conference had been advertised widely but claimed not to know details of the booking. He said: “I don’t deal with the bookings so to be quite honest I don’t have a clue about it.”
It is not clear now where the conference, entitled Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Vision of the Caliphate, will take place.