Abu Izzadeen, formerly known as Trevor Brooks, has been arrested on suspicion of encouraging terrorism, under Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006. The act states that a person commits and offence if “he publishes a statement to which this section applies or causes another to publish such a statement; and…is reckless as to whether members of the public will be directly or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced by the statement to commit, prepare or instigate such acts or offences”. The arrest appears to relate to the speech below that he gave in Birmingham last year:
Whether or not this can be said to ‘encourage’ terrorism to an extent that oversteps what’s legally permissable I’m not sure, but then I’m neither the police nor the prosecuting authorities. What’s undeniable is that Izzadeen is a twat. I wrote about him last September after he’d appeared on the Today programme, prompting Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain to complain that “We have received phone call after phone call from moderate Muslims who are appalled that the Today programme gave such an utterly marginal figure this prime-time spot to spout his bile almost interrupted”. Making reference to an ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph in which 91% of Muslims had answered that they felt either “very loyal” or “quite loyal” towards Britain, I said I thought it might be worth having one of them on instead.
One of Today’s listeners complained that “”the space given to the interview you conducted this morning with this cocky young bigot must have exceeded that given to any elected representative of the Muslim community, ever. We heard nothing but a mouthy rant that must have increased his standing with his mates, horrified 99 per cent of British Muslims, and confirmed the prejudices of many uninformed Brits about what Islam stands for”. Well at least if he goes to prison he won’t be on the wireless again anytime soon.
With stunning lack of originality, Anjem Choudhury has responded to his pal’s arrest by saying that Muslims are now the subject of a “witchhunt”. Perhaps Mr Choudhary might like to think twice before saying things like “you only need to see what happened to Theo van Gogh and Salman Rushdie. People should be aware that certain punishments in Islam are justified for certain actions.”
