So, Qaradawi has been banned from entering the United Kingdom to seek medical treatment.
The Guardian reports that “moderate British Muslim groups, including the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), are upset with the ban.”. The Muslim Council of Britain is not a moderate British Muslim group. It is dominated by the marginal clerical fascist party, Jamaat-e-Islami – the sister party of Qaradawi’s Muslim Brotherhood – which gets a tiny percentage of the vote in South Asia. Only 7% of British Muslims say that it represents their views. For this reason, the Government no longer listens to what it says.
By contrast, a genuinely moderate group of “liberal Arabs and Muslims” has called for Qaradawi to be brought before an International Tribunal “to prosecute individuals, groups, or entities including, but not limited to, Muslim clerics, who issue religious edicts (“fatwas”) inciting terrorist acts.”
Inayat Bunglawala has a piece up on Comment is Free attacking the decision to exclude Qaradawi, bizarrely on “free speech” grounds:
Gordon Brown’s government has finally caved in to the noisy mob who have been angrily demanding that the elderly Islamic preacher, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, should be refused a visa to come to the UK for medical treatment.
Well, so much for free speech. You will recall that during the Satanic Verses and the Danish Cartoons row, British Muslims were repeatedly lectured to about the need to adapt to western notions of free speech. You may not like what is written or drawn, we were told, but as long as it does not break the law, you need to learn to put up with it.
Qaradawi’s free speech is not at issue here. The Government is not censoring what Qaradawi has to say.
The simple fact is that Qaradawi has no right to enter this country. He is not a British or an European Union citizen. In deciding whether to grant a visa to a person who wishes to enter this country, the State is entitled to consider whether the presence of the person in this country presents a danger to the common good. The Government is entitled to come to the conclusion that it would be better that a promoter of violent sectarianism and terrorism be kept out of the country.
So, Qaradawi needs medical treatment, does he?
This is the man who stated on his website:
“[It] is not permissible to donate [organs] to an apostate as he is no more than a traitor to his religion and his people [and thus deserves killing].”
(The words “and thus deserves killing” were removed after they were publicised.)
Perhaps Qaradawi will be able to obtain high quality medical treatment in a country which is both technologically advanced, but which also has no objection to admitting those who preach that god wants us to execute apostates and homosexuals, and launch terrorist attacks on civilians.
Gene adds: At CiF, Peter Tatchell– one of Qaradawi’s most dogged opponents– makes the case for allowing him into the UK for medical treatment.
We should show Qaradawi the mercy that he seeks to deny to fellow Muslims who transgress his dogmatic, illiberal interpretation of Islam.
The government is wrong to stoop to Qaradawi’s level of inhumanity. We should let him come to Britain for medical treatment, and thereby show him and the world that our (albeit imperfect) liberal, humanitarian values are better than his bigotry and his glorification of religious-inspired violence.
…..
Let’s hope his surgeon is a gay Israeli Jew – and that he performs a successful operation, so that Qaradawi is forced to acknowledge that he owes his life to a Jewish sodomite.
I would take that a step further and make it a condition of receiving treatment in Britain that at least one of his doctors be a Jewish homosexual or (better still) lesbian. I wouldn’t even insist that he or she be an Israeli. Surely as the moderate modernizer we are assured Qaradawi is, he would have no objection to such an arrangement.
