We’re just thinking back to the whole Raed Salah affair.
Senior judges have ruled that a leading Islamic political activist is free to stay in Britain despite having given a sermon in which he invoked the antisemitic blood libel.
Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, this week won his appeal against a deportation order imposed last year, despite the judges’ acceptance that his comments would “offend and distress Israeli Jews and the wider Jewish community”.
At the centre of Sheikh Salah’s case was his denial that in a 2007 sermon in East Jerusalem his remarks on children’s blood being used to bake “holy bread” were references to the blood libel against Jews.
But the tribunal judges ruled that his claims were “wholly unpersuasive” and agreed that Home Secretary Theresa May was right to consider the sermon when deciding whether to ban Sheikh Salah from Britain.
In the decision, Upper Immigration Tribunal vice-president Mr Justice Ockelton said: “We do not find this comment could be taken to be anything other than a reference to the blood libel against Jews.”
However, Sheikh Salah’s appeal succeeded on all grounds after the judges concluded that ultimately Mrs May had been “misled”, had “acted under a misapprehension of the facts” and had shown “disproportionate interference” when deciding to ban him from Britain.
Naturally the Tweets are still up. JC is too virtuous to ever be on the wrong side of an argument;
Delighted that Sheikh Raed Salah was won his appeal against the Home Secretary on all counts. His voice of the Palestinians must be heard.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) April 8, 2012
And this:
We’d say it’s perfectly understandable for him to be a member of Palestine Live. Elleanne Green does too;
