UK not doing anything to check banned extremist groups: Wajid

LONDON: Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK Wajid Shamsul Hasan has said he had drawn the attention of Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) to the activities of people linked to the defunct Al-Muhajiroun and Hizbut Tahrir.
“We have stated that these groups are banned in Pakistan and openly active in the UK and I have seen their membership growing in the last 17 years of living in the UK but the UK authorities don’t seem to take the threat of these groups seriously,” Wajid told The News.
He said Pakistanis had always rejected the religious parties in elections and it will be only right if the entry of hate-preachers in Pakistan was banned.The Home Office said it was for Pakistan to decide what to do to those visiting the country. A spokesman said it was up to “local police forces to shut down websites if they break the law”.
Yet Islamabad’s famous Lal Masjid looks set to be the centre of another high-profile tussle as a British extremist group gears up to hold a conference in the mosque premises to issue fatwas on Malala Yousafzai, and former respected and present top leaders of Pakistan.
British-Pakistani ultra-extremist Anjem Chaudhry told The News that he was holding the conference “Sharia4Pakistan” in association with the Lal Masjid administration on November 30 to declare “fatwa on Malala Yousafzai” and claimed that his organisation (Al-Muhajiroun, which is banned in Britain and Pakistan) had widespread support amongst the Lal Masjid students.
Chaudhry, who is a trained solicitor but has devoted himself to the radical causes, said: “Pakistan rulers and Malala stood with the enemy against Muslims and it’s natural that they are targeted by Muslims. I am not surprised Malala was targeted when she said Pakistan doesn’t need Shariah, called Obama her favourite person and appreciated western liberalism. She is baaligh (mature) and should have known what she was saying.”
When asked if he has obtained visa to

Pakistan, he replied: “I will have no problem travelling to Pakistan. If Americans get visas to Pakistan why can’t I, my forefathers come from that land and I am not going to Pakistan on a Raymond Davis style mission or to bomb anyone like American drones do but to stand with the students of Lal Masjid and speak for Shariah in Pakistan. I commend Lal Masjid as it’s the only mosque in Pakistan that stood for Shariah and spoke against Malala. It will be a delegation of seven travelling from here, including Urdu and English speakers.”
Anjem Chaudhry led Al-Muhajiroun group and went on to set up many groups, all of which have been banned but he comes up with new names and organisations soon after. He has issued incendiary statements which had made him the darling of the right-wing tabloids in Britain. The Home Office expelled his leader and mentor Omar Bakri Muhammad to Lebanon after the London bombings. They held conferences in London calling for the implementation of Shariah in Britain and flogging of girls in Trafalgar Square for wearing skimpy clothes and drinking alcohol. Many of Chaudhry’s friends have spent time in jails for being involved in violence and mainstream British Muslims often complain that media promotes them.
A tour of the website, run from a London address, makes Pakistani sectarian and pro-Taliban groups look like peace activists. The website calls for the implementation of Shariah in Pakistan through force and return of the country to a medieval era. The website says that on 30th November, fatwas will be issued on the “kufr constitution” of Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai, former respected and present top leaders of Pakistan and “the transformation of Pakistan under the Shariah”.
Malala is recovering in Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham but since she was shot by a Taliban gunman, many conspiracy theories have been spread on the social media and some Pakistani right-wing groups have tried to score politically by issuing statements in favour of the Taliban and even doubting if Malala had been shot at all. Several senior right-wing politicians have linked the Malala incident with the Waziristan operation against the militants.