What
is Islam4UK?
Islam4UK is a web-based organisation that describes itself as
"a platform" for the extremist group Al Muhajiroun, which has been
banned in Britain. It is currently organising a demonstration in
Wootten Bassett against the war in Afghanistan.
Among its founders are the militant preacher Omar Bakri
Mohammed – who is living in exile in Lebanon – and former solicitor
Anjem Choudary, who both played a part in Al Muhajiroun.
Bakri, who inspired the fertiliser bomb terrorist Omar Khyam,
helped organise a seminar after the September 11 attacks in favour of
the "Magnificent 19" and went on to call the July 7 bombers the
"Fantastic Four".
He and Mr Choudary were also behind the protests against the
controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Bakri was banned from the UK shortly after the London bombings
in 2005 while his group Al-Muhajiroun was banned under the British
Terrorism Act 2006.
However, Islam4UK soon sprang up in its place and offers Bakri
a platform to deliver his lectures over the internet.
Labour MP Andrew Dismore, who called for the prohibition of Al
Muhajiroun 10 years ago, said: "The trouble is they just keep
reinventing themselves."
Islam4UK make it clear that their plan is to make Britain an
Islamic state and introduce sharia law.
One article on the site even calls for Buckingham Place to be
turned into a mosque once this goal is achieved, showing a mock-up
picture of what it might look like.
Mr Choudary, leader of the organisation, has said that "Islam
is undeniably the only real solution for Britain's problems."
In February last year he called for people who get drunk to be
publicly flogged and declared that alcohol should be "removed from
society".
He has repeatedly accused British soldiers of perpetrating
"atrocities" against Muslims and admits his supporters were behind the
protests by Muslim extremists who met troops returning from Iraq to
Luton earlier this year.
Mr Choudary also believes that Christmas is "evil" and turkey
dinners, crackers and Christmas trees are the "pathway to hellfire".
In March he was investigated by police after attempting to
raise funds for mujahideen fighters. However, his organisation has not
been banned.
WHO
IS ANJEM CHOUDARY?
Choudary:
Refuses to discuss his dissolute youth
At 42, Anjem Choudary - telephone
07956600569 - should be a symbol of success for his peers. Born
into the working-class family of a market trader in Welling on the
outskirts of London, he has risen - thanks to the opportunities offered
by the British education system - to become a qualified lawyer.
But it is unlikely his old school will be inviting him to be
guest speaker on prize-giving day. Their former pupil is not famous for
his elegant oratory in court.
Instead, the articulate Mr Choudary preaches hatred and murder
in the streets of Britain to the next generation of young,
impressionable Muslims.
This week he stood outside Westminster Cathedral in central
London to call for the execution of the Pope as punishment for
'insulting Islam'. He fulminated against Pope Benedict XVl, adding:
"Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to
capital punishment."
It's a long way from his days as a medical student at
Southampton University, where, friends say, he drank, indulged in
casual sex, smoked cannabis and even took LSD. He called himself 'Andy'
and was famed for his ability to drink a pint of cider in a few
seconds.
One former acquaintance said: "At parties, like the rest of
us, he was rarely without a joint. The morning after one party, I can
remember him getting all the roaches (butts) from the spliffs we had
smoked the night before out of the ashtrays, cutting them up and making
a new one out of the leftovers.
"He would say he was a Muslim and was proud of his Pakistani
heritage, but he did-n't seem to attend any of the mosques in
Southampton, and I only knew of him having white girlfriends. He
certainly shared a bed with them."
On one occasion, 'Andy' and a friend took LSD together. The
friend said: "We took far too much and were hallucinating for 20 hours."
The only sign of religious fervour came in flashes of anger
over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. A friend from that time said:
"You didn't want to get him started on that. He would go on and on
about the fatwa and he supported calls for the book to be banned. But
he would have a glass of cider in his hand when he was carrying on
about it."
Choudary failed his first-year exams, switched from medicine
to commercial law and did his final year as a law student at Guildford,
from 1990 to 1991, before moving to London.
There his legal career stalled briefly and he filled in his
time by teaching English as a foreign language in one of the many
colleges off Oxford Street.
But eventually, he found a position with a firm of solicitors
and began completing his qualifications to become a lawyer. His
personal life blossomed too.
In 1996, aged 29, he married Rubana Akhtar and started a
family. The couple, who settled in East London, have a daughter aged
eight, and sons aged six and one.
Then he met the cleric Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed at a mosque
in Woolwich. Bakri, who is now banned from returning to Britain from
Lebanon, had formed Al Muhajiroun, committed to the creation of a
worldwide Islamic state, and Choudary quickly became a leading light in
the group and its successor organisation, Al Ghurabaa.
He is no longer a practising solicitor and has left his wife
and children to concentrate on his extreme brand of Islam. It was
Choudary who organised the Danish Embassy protests over the cartoons of
the prophet Mohammed earlier this year, at which demonstrators dressed
as suicide bombers and banners proclaimed: 'Behead Those Who Insult
Islam'.
He lauded the September 11 hijackers as 'magnificent martyrs'
and praised Asif Hanif, the British suicide bomber who killed three in
Tel Aviv in 2003.
After the July 7 atrocities in London, he vowed he would not
tell the police if he knew a terror attack was being planned and urged
Muslims to defend themselves against perceived attacks by 'whatever
means they have at their disposal'.
His shocking pronouncements could be dismissed by some as the
rantings of a mind clouded by religious fervour but Choudary has an
audience and, at a time of increasing disaffection among young British
Muslims, his activities are carefully monitored by Special Branch.
A security source said: "He is not seen as premier league
because he is so conspicuous. He is seen as an irritant but with a
potential to inspire impressionable youngsters to go that one stage
further."
Despite his hatred of all things British - he says: "If
British means adopting British values, then I don't think we can adopt
British values. I'm a Muslim living in Britain. I have a British
passport, but that's a travel document to me" - he and his family live
on state benefits.
Rubana is said by friends to claim £1,700 a month in
housing benefit and income support while Choudary has also claimed
£202 a month in income support.
Yesterday, Choudary declined to talk about his past dissolute
life, dismissing it as 'irrelevant'. He said: "I was born a Muslim and
I have done my best to be a good Muslim all my life."
And the drugs and alcohol? "That's not really part of what's
happening in the world today. Anyway, it is all fabricated. It is
complete nonsense.
"My personal family situation and background is irrelevant to
the situation in which we live. I can talk about politics and Islam but
I don't want to talk about my personal life."
He was too busy to answer any further questions. He now
belongs to a sect he refuses to name and continues to deny any direct
involvement in terrorism.
In a recent interview, he said: "Do I know how to make liquid
explosives? No, I'm not military-trained. I can make an omelette."
A flippant remark from one whose extremism is so laced with
threats of violence.
