UK Jury Gives Abu Hamza Seven Years

Abu Hamza, who was given the name Mostafa Kamel Mostafa at birth, is a Muslim cleric much in the same sense that Torquemada was a Christian priest. He is a hateful bigot who can’t quite accept the fact that non-Muslims have the same rights to life and freedom of conscience he does. A British jury has just sentenced him to seven years in prison after convicting him on 11 of 15 counts including inciting murder and race hatred.

It is easy to make him a caricature of an Islamic mad-man; he lost a hand and an eye, clearing landmines in Afghanistan if one is to believe him. Thus, he can be cast in the mold of a pirate without too much trouble. He is, however, something much nastier and much more serious. He is an ideological descendant of Hitler, Stalin and the rest.

There is no reason to rely on the opinion of this journal. The man’s own words condemned him before the jury and before the court of world opinion. “We like blood and are addicted to it. When they say they love Allah they must ask themselves how much kafir [infidel] blood they have spilt for Allah.” Or “Darwin wanted to establish a link between human beings and monkeys. Why? Because he was so afraid to find his own grandfather as a Jew, the first monkey, the first ape. So he wanted to prove it to the people from the other way round. The source of man is monkey. So the source of monkey is a man, and he’s a Jew.” Or “Killing a Kafir for any reason you can say it is okay -- even if there is no reason.”

In passing sentence, Mr. Justice Hughes told Abu Hamza, “I do not make the mistake that you represent Islamic thinking generally. You are entitled to your views and in this country you are entitled to express them, but only up to the point where you incite murder or use language calculated to incite racial hatred. That is what you did. You used your authority to legitimise anger and to lead your audiences to believe that it gave rise to a duty to murder. No-one can say now what damage your words may have caused . No-one can say whether audiences acted on your words. The potential for both direct and indirect damage is simply incalculable. You helped to create an atmosphere in which to kill has become regarded by some as not only a legitimate course of action but also a moral and religious duty in pursuit of perceived injustice.”

Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, said: “Abu Hamza was an embarrassment to the Muslim community, both in what he did and what he said. Although time in prison is a very painful experience the Muslim reaction will be that he brought misery on himself.”

This journal does not believe that a person should be imprisoned merely for what he says, no matter how awful or irresponsible. However, when police raided the Finsbury Park Mosque where he preached his perverted version of Islam in January 2003, the Times notes, “they found an array of terrorist paraphernalia, including nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) protective suits, blank firing weapons, a stun gun and a CS canister.” In a country like Britain where most policemen and women still don’t carry guns, it seems he was intent on going beyond irresponsible and hateful speech to irresponsible and hateful actions. He will be eligible for parole in two years, at which point he could be extradited to the US, where he is also wanted for trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.

The Danish flag appears here as a protest against the violence being done to the free press of that country and elsewhere by those offended by some cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be unto him. A perceived insult is not an excuse for intimidation and violence, even in the name of the Creator. One cannot insult God, only small-minded men who falsely claim to speak for Him. © Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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