Hussein al-Alak, whose campaigning background is described here, has a letter in the Morning Star today:
The police say that protests by the English Defence League are “fuelling Islamic extremism” (M Star November 19) with Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate claiming that “this demonstrates how hate breeds hate.”
Quite right.
So why was the “highlight” of one Stop the War Coalition rally the appearance of Sheikh Zagani – foreign affairs spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army has been heavily involved in ethnic and religious cleansing of minorities in Iraq?
The Palestinian community in Iraq have mostly been resident since the 1940s. But seven years ago after the fall of Baghdad al-Sadr told the 19,000 Palestinians who fled the city to “leave Iraq or face death.”
His campaign involved kidnappings, death threats and murder. One British newspaper reported that year of how one man’s “intestines were spilt from his stomach” as he screamed: “I’m dying, I’m dying.”
Last month’s church massacre in Baghdad killed over 50 Iraqi Christians.
One of the survivors of that congregation has informed a prominent newspaper that he and his family fled just weeks before the attack after the Mehdi Army tried to extort $1,000 (£633) a month from him, threatening to kill his whole family if he did not comply.
Inside Iraq the Mehdi Army are known as a bunch of street thugs.
Its favourite tools of torture include electric drills.
While its representatives speaking at anti-war rallies in Britain ordinary Iraqis were being murdered for no other reason that they were Christians.
Or Palestinians. Or Sunnis. Or just the wrong type of Shi’ite.
If “hate breeds hate” then these people have no place at progressive public events.
What is the answer to his question?