Here’s Labour MEP Afzal Khan comparing the Israeli government to Nazis in 2014:
This stupid, base and hurtful slur has earned Mr Afzal nothing more than a mild rebuke from the Labour party rather than suspension. He has simply been “reminded of his responsibilities as a Labour representative”. Mr Khan himself has refused to comment, as far as I know. Not even some sort of half apology.
A UKIM Man
Really this is no surprise. Look into his career and you will find that Mr Khan has long been close to the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM).
UKIM is a fixture on the Islamist scene and runs mosques up and down the country. It is essentially this country’s face of the South Asian extremist group Jamaat-e-Islami.
Here you go. This is a poster for a UKIM event last year featuring Siraj ul-Haq, the current leader of Jamaat, and Zahid Parvez, UKIM’s president. The third speaker is Afzal Khan.
Here they are on the big day.
This was one of at least three UKIM events Mr Khan has attended in recent years.
There’s plenty of history too. Already a Labour councillor, in 2002 Khan represented UKIM at an angry demonstration in London against Israel, the UK and the USA. It brought Islamists and the far left together – Khan was with the disturbingly changing times. In his speech, he accused Israel of “genocide”.
He was also named as “head” of UKIM’s Khizra mosque in Manchester in 2005.
All of this is dispiriting. No mainstream politician in this country should have anything to do with Jamaat-e-Islami and Siraj ul-Haq, apart from opposing them. A few episodes in ul-Haq’s career should suffice to make this clear.
Saluting Mumtaz Qadri
The right kind of religious murderer will make ul-Haq a happy man.
Mumtaz Qadri, for example, the extremist fanatic who shot Pakistani politician Salman Taseer to death.
JI Ameer Senator Siraj-ul-Haq, while addressing the march, paid rich tributes to Mumtaz Qadri. He said Qadri delivered a clear message by sacrificing his life that Muslim Ummah would not tolerate any attempt to safeguard blasphemers.
The Real Charlie Problem
Not long after the murders of Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris, ul-Haq was vexed by their cartoons rather than the atrocity, and he knew who to blame.
Sirajul Haq said that the repeated incidents of the blasphemy of the Noble Prophet and the mock trials of the Holy Quran and setting the holy book afire were chain of the Zionists plot to disturb world peace. The Zionists had always been at the back of the crusades as they had always hatched conspiracies to pit the Muslims and the Christians against each other.
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Condemning the silence of the Muslim rulers on the issue, the JI chief however declared that the JI and its like- minded parties would continue to chase the blasphemers till they stopped this unholy practice. He said that the Muslims considered it greatest honour to lay down their lives for safeguarding the sanctity of the beloved Prophet
To the streets! Death!
Tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets in Pakistan in anger at the Prophet Mohammed cartoons published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The largest rally was held in Karachi, where 25,000 people shouted slogans including ‘death to France’, ‘death to the blasphemers’ and ‘(We are) ready to sacrifice life for Prophet Mohammed’.
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‘In Paris hundreds of thousands of people came onto the streets to support Satan’s agents and in response to that hundreds and thousands of people have come out here on the streets for love of the prophet,’ Siraj-ul-Haq said.
Protect Terrorists
While blasphemers deserve death, jihadi terrorists merit protection.
Last Saturday the US attacked Taliban leader Mullah Mansour in Pakistan, citing an “imminent threat”.
Siraj ul-Haq is not pleased. The real enemy is America.
He said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had stated that he had been informed of the drone attack afterwards which was really shameful. This implied that the enemy had reached our Drawing Room but the rulers were unconcerned.
Here is a scene from 2011:
Hundreds of Pakistani tribesmen on Tuesday threatened the United States with holy war, lashing out at demands for action against Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani extremists based in Pakistan.
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On Tuesday, hundreds of tribesmen gathered in Landikotal, a town on Pakistan’s northwestern border with Afghanistan, mobilised by religious party Jamaat-e-Islami to protest against the United States.Waving party flags and wearing ribbons, dozens of tribesmen joined the throng armed with Kalashnikovs, an AFP reporter said.
“We announce the holy war against America if they attack Pakistan,” Siraj-Ul-Haq, the party’s deputy head, told the gathering.
And another from 2008:
Maulana Siraj-ul-Haq, the Emir of Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, has warned of a nationwide jihad if the U.S. forces attack the Pakistan’s tribal region in the pursuit of the Taliban militants.
According to a report in the Urdu-language newspaper Roznama Jasarat, Maulana Siraj-ul-Haq said that should the U.S. attack the tribal region, jihad will be launched in the region from Karachi through Chitral in the NWFP on the Afghan border.
According to the report, the Jamaat-e-Islami leader said that mosques and minarets are the fortresses of Islamic revolution.
The West Using Women Against Us
Even protecting women from violence is part of the enemy’s plot. Furious about a new bill to help abused women in Punjab, ul-Haq chaired a conference with fellow extremists earlier this year.
The chairman of Jamat-e-Islami (JI) Siraj-ul-Haq said Women Protection Act must be retracted, Waqt News reported. “The bill is totally against the Constitution of Pakistan and Sharia Law,” he said.
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Domestic abuse, economic discrimination and acid attacks made Pakistan the world’s third most dangerous country in the world for women, a 2011 Thomson Reuters Foundation expert poll showed.“The controversial law to protect women was promulgated to accomplish the West’s agenda to destroy the family system in Pakistan,” read the joint declaration issued at the end of the concrescence. “This act … is redundant and would add to the miseries of women.”
Responsible Politics
In a world ravaged almost every day by horrific Islamist violence and plagued by insane hatred, responsible politicians need to stand up against extremists, not with them.
I don’t think Mr Khan is any such politician.
Nor will his party call him to account.
