Freedom of Speech as a Weapon
British tabloid The Sun notes the insanity of allowing Islamic propagandist Tariq Ramadan to address a London conference—partially funded by London police: Abuse of Britain. (Hat tip: Ethel.)
JUST five days since 7/7 — and the flagrant abuse of Britain’s freedom-of-speech laws is laid bare yet again.
Extremist Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, who backs suicide bombings, is to address a London conference part-funded by police.
This man’s suspected links with terrorists are strong enough for him to be banned from both America and France.
But in our bomb-hit capital he is being given a platform to speak — while the victims of Britain’s worst terror atrocity wait to be buried.
Ramadan is no ranting Abu Hamza or Omar Bakri. He’s more dangerous than that.
He is a soft-spoken professor whose moderate tones present an acceptable, “reasonable” face of terror to impressionable young Muslims.
In one breath he condemns the horrors in London and Madrid. But through seemingly reasoned argu- ments he justifies similar attacks where Muslims are oppressed.
Ramadan has muddied the waters enough for the Met and ACPO to believe him a reasonable man. They should not be fooled.
And rank-and-file bobbies, who reacted with such extraordinary courage last Thursday, will rightly be outraged if the Force has any involvement with him.
Sponsoring community projects is entirely laudable. Giving the oxygen of publicity to an apologist for terrorism is not. Especially with the Tube and bus bombings so fresh in our minds.
The police must pull the plug without delay. And Home Secretary Charles Clarke must move swiftly to ban Professor Ramadan from our shores.
We don’t need scholars justifying suicide bombers and analysing for us the grievances that drive them.
We don’t need lectures on understanding the monsters who slaughtered innocent Londoners.
To hell with them. And to hell with this professor too.