Muslim group banned in Britain ahead of planned demonstration
November 10 (ENInews)--Britain's Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced on 10 November that an extremist Islamist group called Muslims Against Crusades will be banned, starting at midnight (GMT). The parliamentary order, handed down in London, will make membership in the group a criminal offense.
The group had planned to stage in London on 11 November a demonstration called Hell for Heroes on the day millions of Britons honor the dead of two world wars and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"I am satisfied Muslims Against Crusades is simply another name for an organization already proscribed under a number of names including Al-Ghurabaa, The Saved Sect, Al-Muhajiroum and Islam4UK. The organization was proscribed in 2006 for glorifying terrorism and we are clear it should not be able to continue these activities by simply changing its name," May told members of Parliament.
The Terrorism Act of 2000 gives the home secretary power to ban any group continuing the activities of a proscribed organization but working under a different name.
A statement on the Muslim group's website said, "the planned Hell for Heroes demonstration has undoubtedly struck a raw nerve in Parliament by exposing the blunt truth behind the poppy. The poppy, Armistice Day and Remembrance [Day] are the fig leaves behind which war crimes committed by serving British soldiers are covered and justified."
Poppies, a symbol found in the 1915 poem "In Flanders Fields," are worn by millions of Britons on 11 November, the day World War I ended in 1918.
