mamatedave
[Profile - Diary]
Msg no: 36711
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“Many Muslims in Britain want to live peacefully and happily under the British rule of law, but hearing that from another Muslim, who is a leader from a Muslim country, summed up the situation in the UK.
“It is shocking to hear an Iraqi who went to a mosque in Blackburn saying that that some of its practices should be outlawed.”
He added: “Is it not time that we took a much tougher approach to what is happening in the 1,300 mosques that we have in the UK?”
Muslim leaders in Blackburn dismissed the claims as “rubbish” last night but the town has had high-level links to terror in the past and been targeted by preachers of hate.
In June last year Junade Feroze, 31, from Blackburn, was jailed for 22 years after joining an Al Qaeda cell plotting to plant radiation bombs in Britain and blow up a train in a tunnel below the Thames.
The gang also planned to explode stretch limousines packed with radioactive material in underground car parks.
The cell’s Al Qaeda “general” Dhiren Barot, who was jailed for a minimum 30 years, visited married father-of-three Feroze’s home as he recruited the mass murder cell.
Mr Justice Barot, jailing the gang at Woolwich Crown Court, said: “The attacks would have threatened the democratic government, security and state and the lives and livelihoods of thousands, if not millions of people.”
Hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza is also known to have preached in Blackburn before he was jailed.
Former Blackburn student Saajid Badat, 26, fell under Hamza’s spell and later pledged to blow himself up on a packed Miami-bound jetliner with failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid in 2001. He had second thoughts but was jailed for 13 years.
Until his arrest Badat hoped to become an imam and studied at the moderate College of Islamic Knowledge and Guidance in Blackburn.
Last night it was unclear which mosques were visited by Dr Salih, who gave a speech supporting Blackburn MP Jack Straw in the town’s Bangor Street Community Centre.
The building is also a headquarters for the Lancashire Council of Mosques. The Masjid-E-Anisul mosque, which is attached to the centre, was closed yesterday.
Council of Mosques chairman Abdul Hamid said: “I am not aware of these things. They are totally misplaced accusations. Mosques work to bring people together. I do not understand why someone is saying they found extremist literature because there is not any. I think his comments are totally inappropriate.
“He has come over for a few days. How has he found extremism? What book has he read? “I don’t know which mosques he visited. This is really irresponsible.”
Sunni Muslim Dr Salih, now 47, fled to Britain in 1980 to escape the persecution of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein. During a 10-year exile he studied engineering at Cardiff University and computer modelling at Liverpool University. He won office in 2005 in Iraq’s first democratic elections in 50 years and quickly backed Tony Blair’s decision to topple Saddam.
In a statement last night Justice Minister Mr Straw said: “The overwhelming majority of people of the Muslim faith in Blackburn are the same as everyone else in the community – they want to lead peaceful and harmonious lives. The mosques in Blackburn, and the Lancashire Council of Mosques, are in the lead on this.
“Almost all the people Barham Salih saw and was concerned about when he came to support my election campaign in 2005 were from outside Blackburn. They were not in the mosques – and their poison failed to stop me winning an 8,000 majority.”
He added: “It was certainly true that during that last election campaign there were some who vocally expressed extreme views, and some of them trailed me and those who supported me around the town.
“But they were not inside the mosques, and most of those came from outside the town, disappearing quickly after I’d won.”
But many observers believe that the fears voiced in Baghdad by Dr Salih in November demand action. Tory MP Philip Davies said: “The Government should listen to what he is saying.”
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