HIZB UT-TAHRIR RESPONDS TO THE PRIME MINISTER'S BAN
(12 August 2005)

Tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers will sign a nationwide petition after Friday prayers today as part of a campaign opposing government proposals to silence legitimate political expression in the Muslim community including the banning of the non-violent Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir. The petition is being launched today [12 August] at mosques and Islamic centres throughout the UK.

Dr Imran Waheed, Media Representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, said, “The tens of thousands of Muslims signing the petition today will attest to the fact that Hizb ut-Tahrir is well known for its non-violent approach and that this has been demonstrated on many occasions including peaceful marches against military action in Iraq and Afghanistan and against France’s banning of the Hijab [headscarf].”

“We have been inundated with messages of support from the Muslim community – many of them know local members of Hizb ut-Tahrir who work in their community as doctors, lawyers, accountants and teachers. This petition will provide our community with an opportunity to make their views on these proposals known.”

In a statement issued on 6 August 2005, Hizb ut-Tahrir responded to the proposed ban of the party.

"We condemn outright the announcement by Prime Minister Tony Blair proposing a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir, the non-violent Islamic political party. The banning of Hizb ut-Tahrir has as its aim the curtailment of legitimate Islamic political debate. Even though the party has been open to intellectual debate and even though the Prime Minister said that he wanted a battle of ideas, it became apparent that this government could not face the party through such avenues and resorted to such draconian measures.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has a record of over 50 years of following a method of non-violent political activity against the unelected dictators and despots who rule the Muslim world with the West’s approval. In its work to establish the Islamic Caliphate, Hizb ut-Tahrir has never resorted to any sort of armed struggle and nor has it ever incited people to kill innocent civilians. It has throughout its history worked through intellectual and political means while its members have been tortured and killed in the thousands.

In Britain the party has attracted to its ranks men and women, young and old, from different walks of life and from different ethnicities. Its activities including conferences, seminars and roundtable discussions, have been attended by thousands of people. Annual conferences have been attended by in excess of 10,000 people. In recent times we have held panel discussions with non-Muslim politicians, thinkers and personalities including Roger Mosey, Edwina Currie, Peter Hitchens, Clive Crook and Michael Gove, amongst others.

In response to the proposal to ban our organisation, we have held face to face meetings with leading Islamic groups and personalities. They have expressed serious concerns about the banning of the party and intend to oppose this move as they feel this will hamper community relations rather than bringing communities together.

With respect to the London bombings, we once again state in explicit terms that Islam forbids the killing of innocent civilians – we again express our denunciation of the London bombings of 7th July 2005. Prior to that we have also expressed our denunciation of the attacks of September 11th 2001. We would also like to point out for the record that we have no relationship whatsoever, by word or deed, with the organisation al-Muhajiroun.

Our organisation has faced banning by many of the tyrannical rulers of the Muslim world who do not tolerate any political dissent whatsoever. The ex-British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, exposed the boiling alive of our members by the Karimov regime and the extraction of false intelligence under torture for Western security services. Every one of our members in prison in the Muslim world is there for nothing other than expressing a political opinion, distributing a leaflet or accounting a politician.

Placing a ban on a political party with a 50 year history of non-violence will lead many to question the talk of freedom of speech, tolerance, people power, human rights and democracy.

Finally, we intend to exhaust all legal avenues in order to continue our non-violent political work."

Top