Abdullah Hasan is an Islamic Forum of Europe activist. He will be giving lessons at the East London Mosque this Ramadan.
This is something like a church inviting a man who had called Anders Breivik “our brother” to give religious lessons.
Consider his views on Aafia Siddiqui, a suspected Al Qaeda operative.
She was arrested by Afghan authorities in July 2008. They searched her and found these items:
SIDDIQUI was detained by Afghan authorities, who found a number of items in her possession, including handwritten notes that referred to a “mass casualty attack” and that listed various locations in the United States, including Plum Island, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Other notes in SIDDIQUI’s possession referred to the construction of “dirty bombs,” and discussed various ways to attack “enemies,” including by destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs, and deploying gliders.
In custody, she managed to grab a rifle and start shooting at US soldiers and officials and their Afghan colleagues. She was then charged with attempted murder and convicted in open court in New York last year. She used the court as a stage for antisemitic outbursts:
On questioning during jury selection: The next question is going to be on anti-Semitism, and all I said was Israel was behind 9/11, and that’s not anti-Semitism!
On potential jurors: If they have a Zionist or Israeli background . . . they are all mad at me. I have a feeling everyone here is them [sic] – subject to genetic testing. They should be excluded if you want to be fair.
Convicted, she said:
This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America. Your anger should be directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof.
She remains an important cause for terrorists to this day. A new Al Qaeda propaganda tape hails her and the Pakistani Taliban have demanded she be released from US custody in return for two Swiss citizens they have kidnapped.
What does Abdullah Hasan make of her?
Have a look at this lecture in September 2010:
For Hasan, Siddiqui is “our sister”:
The situation with our sister Aafia Siddiqui and our other brothers and sisters is not ambiguous. It’s very clear. She’s not a terrorist. She’s not a terrorist wanting to blow up buildings and so on and so forth. How can she be a terrorist if she had children, and she was going out with her bag and so on and so forth. She’s not a terrorist, she was a Muslim trying to practise Islam
Furthermore, the detainees in Guantanamo are “our brothers”.
And how we can, inshallah [God willing], benefit ourselves in this dunya [this world] and also help our brothers and sisters, not just sister Dr Aafia Siddiqui, but our brothers and sisters all over the world, in Britain, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, in India, in Palestine, more specifically in Gaza, who have been in Guantanamo Bay and other places, who have been incarcerated for many years now.
How did people end up in Guantanamo? Simple – merely because they “believe in Allah”. And Muslims must support them to serve Allah.
There are many other brothers and sisters in Bagram, in Guantanamo Bay, who are being harmed, day in, day out. Why? Their blame was nothing but they believe in Allah. This is why they are being tortured day in, day out. And we have to respond to the call of Allah [to support them].
In fact, not supporting a convicted criminal and racist and Al Qaeda suspects will put Muslims’ cosmic fate at risk:
Our brothers and sisters in Guantanamo Bay and other places, in Palestine, in Gaza, they need our help, right? And we have so many opportunities, living in London, to help them. And if we do not help them, we will be asked, we will be questioned on the Day of Judgment. And it is very, very important that we give dawah [propagation] in this society, we highlight the plight of our brothers and sisters in Palestine, highlight the plight of our sister Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.
The talk was given at a meeting of the “Justice for Aafia Coalition”, an Islamist group that has helped to spread incendiary lies about the case, such as claims that Siddiqui was raped in US custody and that the US murdered one of her children.
Hasan’s fellow speakers at the meeting were two of the Tipton Three, who went to Afghanistan in 2001 for “charity work” and just somehow ended up in a terrorist training camp; Cageprisoners’ trained parrot Andy Worthington; Uthman Lateef, another supporter of terrorist suspects who tells Muslims they should not help the police; Hamza Tzortzis, who has said Muslims “reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even the idea of freedom”; and Ilyas Townsend of the Lewisham Islamic Centre, one of London’s worst extremist hotspots.
With a line-up like that, it is no wonder that Hasan has a lament:
Some mosques, when you go to them and say we want to organise a conference or seminar on what’s happening with the sister Aafia Siddiqui, what’s happening with our brothers and sisters in Gaza and so on and so forth, some mosques say “we don’t what to hear it”. Why? Because they’re scared, they think it’s dangerous, they say the imams will lose their job, they will get their institution or mosque, they will lose their licence and so on and so forth. Because they’re scared. Right? We should not be scared.
Happily for Hasan, the East London Mosque is not “scared” at all. It continues to welcome him and also hosted another Siddiqui propaganda session, this time organised by Cageprisoners, last December.
Over the last five financial years the mosque has received a total of £2.6 mn in public funding, including £28,500 for “preventing violent extremism” and £196,000 for “community cohesion”.
