Strasbourg Rules Britannia:The "Human Rights" Ruling That Favours A Jihadist Over Britain's Security

“London has traditionally been a place of refuge and tolerance; Marx after all wrote his classic work in the British Library. London was the favourite place of exile of anarchists and revolutionaries. More recently it has been seen as the home of Muslim opposition forces, even leading to the French coining the term Londonistan. This is a heritage that we are proud of, even if it makes us occasional enemies of other governments.”  [My emphasis]

So enthused Britain's then Ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, an avowed admirer of Hezbollah cleric Sheikh Fadlallah, in a speech at Beirut Arab University a couple of years ago.

The name of the speech? "The Legal framework of Human Rights as a necessary protection for individual citizens and for diversity".

Here's another of its gems:

"Today in the UK these rights are enshrined in a Human Rights Act which was agreed in 1998 and which in turn ensures the primacy of the European Human Rights Convention agreed in 1950 over other aspects of English law.   That development in itself: the enshrinement of a Human Rights Act and the acknowledgement of international law as paramount was a very significant step forward in the evolution of English justice."

This seemingly archetypal (save in gender) representative of the FCO Camel Corps (no great friends to Israel, they, and that's a classic British understatement) continued:

"Muslims represent about 3% of the total British population, about 2 million people.  There are now over 1,200 mosques in the UK and more than 110 Muslim schools.  Some of these are state schools.... Muslims in the UK have been able to use human rights legislation successfully to argue that if the state provides other faith schools, in this case, Church of England and Catholic schools, then the state should also provide Muslim schools where demand justified such a provision.  This now happens."

Quite so.  But there's a more negative side to the Human Rights Act, as glimpsed recently in a couple of cases discussed - here and here - in the Daily Express by Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard.

In fact,  the situation (except for so-called Human Rights lawyers, of course) wrought by this piece of legislation is far far darker.  Britain has lost control of its sovereign jurisdiction regarding the fate even of the vilest po;tical extremists who pose a clear and present danger to its citizens.

One of the "Muslim opposition forces" which, to the evident delight of such metropolitan elites asthe Camel Corps and the Human Rights Industry, were offered sanctuary in the UK, was (crazily enough) radical Islamist cleric and al-Qaeda crony Abu Qatada.  And as we saw today the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has thrown a spanner into the British Home Office's works by ruling that he cannot be deported to Jordan.

One of the best commentaries on this abhorrent state of affairs comes from the Henry Jackson Society, and I reproduce it here, with no further input by me:


States the Henry Jackson Society:

"Qatada, a Jordanian national, stands accused of conspiracy to cause explosions in his home country, but has never been charged with any offences in the UK, despite a long and damning record of terrorist activity.  Qatada has served as the spiritual advisor to a host of radical Islamists including 9/11's '20th hijacker' Zacarias Moussaoui and  the 2001 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid.  He was the mentor of Abu Hamza, the former imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque who was convicted of soliciting to murder and inciting racial hatred in 2006.    

Qatada has been linked to the terrorist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad (now merged with al-Qaeda) through Ayman al-Zawahiri and is believed to have known Osama bin Laden since 1989.  

The ECHR judgment found the UK legal system did everything it could in processing Qatada and that the UK's extradition arrangements with Jordan were sound. Further, Qatada is not staying in the UK because he is at risk of torture, but because the evidence against him might have been obtained from others under duress, breaching article six of the ECHR, the right to a fair trial. 

Before his arrest in London in October 2002, Abu Qatada was the most prominent jihadist scholar in the UK. Widely seen as wielding more theological authority than his student Abu Hamza, he issued fatwas on behalf of the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) in Algeria and in the late 1990s and early 2000s played a key role in radicalising several key al-Qaeda individuals.

Eighteen video recordings of Abu Qatada's talks were discovered in the Hamburg flats of Muhammad Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attacks and when he was arrested in February 2001, police discovered £170,000 in cash in his home, including £805 in an envelope labelled "For the Mujahedin in Chechnya". 

In February 2007, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that "He has given advice to many terrorist groups and individuals, whether formerly a spiritual adviser to them or not. His reach and the depth of his influence in that respect is formidable, even incalculable." 

The 2008 report Virtual Caliphate, by the Centre for Social Cohesion, now part of the Henry Jackson Society, found many Islamist websites hosting audio recordings by Abu Qatada calling for jihad as the way to establish the Islamic caliphate, and demanding the execution of Muslim secularists, whom he describes as "kaffirs" (unbelievers).

In one lecture, 'Wajib al-Muslim' ('The Duty of Muslims') Qatada claims that it is the duty of Muslim to wage jihad against "oppressors" (both Muslim and non-Muslim) who do not fully apply sharia law until the caliphate has been re-established, saying

"The only way to have a khilafa is through jihad."

Qatada also explicitly calls on Muslims to murder non-Muslims, saying that:

"Our countries have been infiltrated by kaffirs [non-Muslims]. It is farid [duty] for us to turn our swords on to them and kill them."

"We must fight the kaffirs. We can't reason with them. We can't reach a compromise and we can't be friends."

In another recording entitled 'Seerah' ('The Path') he launches a tirade against Christians and Jews while outlining his apocalyptic visions of the future, describing Christianity and Judaism as "devil worshipping" and saying:

"There will be a great battle against the wathaniyah [Jews and Christians] where the saviour will come back to this earth, the king with an army in the sky, killing the Jews, wipe them out, and rid of the planet of the Jews. Esa [Jesus] will return and spread peace; the majority that remain are those who believe in Esa."

He then tells his listeners that:

"In Jewish law, when a Jew enters a village in war or peace it is his duty to rape the land, take kill the men and turn the women into slaves. He will take the land and the money and that is what that religion says. This war is for existence, to exist or not exist."

Robin Simcox, Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, said today:

"Abu Qatada has been detained for almost ten years without trial while awaiting extradition to Jordan. This is a man who aspiring terrorists and jihadists from around the world sought out for spiritual advice. His continued presence in the UK poses a grave national security threat.""