Hizb Tahrir will be banned from operating in the UK due to anti-Semitic claims, the Home Secretary has announced.
Islamist groups, already banned in countries such as Germany and Indonesia, will no longer be allowed to recruit, hold protests or hold rallies across the UK.
Ministers have criticized the group after demonstrations against Israel's attacks on Gaza.
If Congress agrees, the draft order enacted on Monday would go into effect on January 19th. This means that it is a crime to belong to a group, solicit support for a group, or display articles in a public place in a way that gives rise to suspicion of membership or support for a group. Masu.
Home Secretary James Cleverley said: “Hizb Tahrir is an anti-Semitic organization that actively promotes and encourages terrorism, including glorifying and celebrating the horrific attacks of October 7th.
“Banning this terrorist group will ensure that anyone affiliated with them or inviting support to them will face consequences. It will curb Hizb ut-Tahrir's ability to operate as it currently does It will happen.”
Violations of certain prohibitions can carry penalties of up to 14 years in prison, which may be imposed by a court alongside or in lieu of a fine.
Since the October 7 attack by Hamas and the subsequent military response by Israel, Hizb Tahrir has not condemned Hamas, an organization already banned in the UK, but rather said, “If this is carried out by the resistance… He has praised the attack on the Israeli people by saying, Group, imagine what a united response from the Islamic world could accomplish. ” The country called on Islamic countries to “mobilize their troops to eliminate the Zionist occupiers.”
Hizb Tahrir, which Tony Blair and David Cameron previously tried to ban when they were in Downing Street, called for “wiping out the Zionist entity” and referred to the “huge Jew”.
In October, members of the group took part in a rally in front of the Egyptian and Turkish embassies in London, calling for an attack on Israel by “Islamic forces.”
Abdul Wahid, the head of Hizb Tahrir in the UK, has worked as a family physician for more than 20 years under his real name Dr. Wahid Asif Shaida.
After the Mail on Sunday report, Mr Shaida confirmed that he was also known as Abdul Wahid, but denied that Hizb ut-Tahrir was “extremist” and said the term ” “derogatory” and has no agreed meaning. He added: “For reasons of professional integrity, I keep a clear line between my professional life and my political life.”
Shaida has been contacted for comment.
Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks the establishment of a caliphate in the Middle East. Critics, including former members of the group, claim this is a gateway to violent extremism.
Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to ban Hizb ut Tahrir as part of his counter-extremism plan after the July 7, 2005, bombings, but that proposal was dropped.
Prime Minister Blair's failure was criticized by David Cameron, who called Hizb Tahrir a “conveyor belt to terror”. However, by the time Cameron resigned as prime minister eight years later, the ban had not been implemented.
In both cases, the plans were halted after protests by the groups that they were nonviolent and their lawyers argued that the bans were unenforceable.
Headquartered in Lebanon, the group operates in at least 32 countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, and has a “long-term goal of establishing a caliphate governed by Islamic law,” the Interior Ministry said. Stated.
It was founded in Jerusalem in the 1950s with a vision of an international caliphate spanning all Islamic countries.
The organization rose to prominence in the early 1990s under the leadership of Omar Bakri Muhammad, the so-called “Tottenham Ayatollah”, who resigned in 1996 and founded a more hardline group, al-Muhajiroun. .
The remaining leaders insist they are abiding by the law. The group's stated public position is that it does not support Hamas or advocate the use of violence to achieve an Islamic state.
Hizb ut Tahrir has been contacted for comment. The group denied being anti-Semitic last year, saying: “We do not support the Hamas group, but we support the Palestinian people.”
“Rather than encouraging people to do the same, we want a political change so that the resources of Islamic countries are used to liberate and rescue the stranded people of Palestine. It is not divisive to say that we should be freed from this occupation.”
Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper welcomed the ban. “The government was right to urgently examine the available evidence and intelligence regarding the threat posed by Hizb Tahrir, and we welcome and support the decision to ban them,” she said.
Senior Conservative Party leaders have previously criticized Hizb ut Tahrir for representing Keir Starmer in his bid to overturn the ban in Germany in 2008. Mr Starmer was part of a team of lawyers who submitted an application to the European Court of Human Rights, but the application was rejected and the ban remained in place.
Labor said he held the job under “taxi rank” rules and resigned before the oral hearing to become director of public prosecutions. According to the party, he led the Democratic Progressive Party's prosecution of “terrorists linked to Hizb Tahrir” and the first-ever prosecution of al-Qaeda.
