 Obviously I was never going to see eye to eye with the benefitchogging Muslim hate cleric Anjem Choudary, but I didn’t realise how many of his own community think he’s dreadful, too. Few of the cafes on his home turf — London’s East End — will accommodate the bearded 42-year-old firebrand and self-styled “most hated man in Britain”. Indeed, just after he flounces out of our interview in one of the few that will — a halal diner in Whitechapel — a waiter asks me: “Is that the coffin man? I can’t bear him. All he wants is fame, and the easiest way to get that is say that Christian people should be persecuted. I don’t see much difference between him and Nick Griffin.” Two weeks ago Choudary, a British-born Muslim of Pakistani origin and the leader of the now-outlawed extremist group Islam4UK, caused a storm when he announced a plan to march 500 coffins through Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, a town that regularly honours the British soldiers killed in Afghanistan and repatriated to nearby RAF Lyneham. He wanted to “highlight the tens of thousands of Muslim dead in Afghanistan”, he says now, squeezing into a booth. “But as soon as I had the idea — and it was only ever an idea — Gordon Brown said it was disgusting, abhorrent, and that the home secretary, Alan Johnson, would see to any request to ban it.” As it turned out, Choudary ended up cancelling, but not before Johnson had taken steps to proscribe Islam4UK under anti-terrorism legislation. Still, when we meet on Wednesday afternoon, just eight hours before the ban comes into effect, Choudary remains defiant. “Business as usual,” he barks. “I’ll be going to debates, going into the street, having meetings . . .” Indeed, he’s got five followers in tow right now, a noisy rabble of bearded young men, who pile into the cafe, ordering lattes, fielding calls, telling me about their conversions to Islam and recent trips to the Middle East, “on holiday”, emphasises one, while the others giggle. Well, they won’t be giggling for long; they’ll be winding down Islam4UK, shutting the website and ... that’s pretty much all.
The group is “more an affiliation of ideas”, says one, so there aren’t any formal tokens of membership such as cards or fees. Amid concerns that the group will simply change its name and continue, Choudary, who says he learnt about the ban from “the News of the World on Sunday”, insists he has “no option” but to do just that. “Look, Audrey” — he calls me Audrey throughout the interview, although he has demanded to see my press card — “I have no choice but to propagate Islam and invite people. Certain things are obviously illegal so the government will be monitoring . . .” Like what? According to the 2006 act under which Choudary’s group has been proscribed, it is illegal to promote terrorism or to glorify terrorist acts.
One Whitehall insider indicated last Sunday that members of the group had been making posts on the web in contravention of the act; in the past, Choudary himself has been accused of posting incitements on the internet under a false name. The Home Office has not given any precise indication of Islam4UK’s crime. “They haven’t contacted me,” Choudary says. So what does he think are the reasons for the ban? “Well, no reasons really,” he puffs, “but both you and I know, Audrey, they banned us because they were embarrassed because of Wootton Bassett. But also because of our continuous exposing of the British government, our call for imposing the sharia, the fact that we advocate not co-operating with the police in their fight against terrorism.” Choudary has been shut down before: a previous group he belonged to, Al-Muhajiroun, was banned in 2004. Jointly led by Choudary and Omar Bakri Mohammed, a fundamentalist cleric from Syria known as the Tottenham Ayatollah until he was excluded from Britain by Charles Clarke in 2005, Al-Muhajiroun had referred to the 9/11 bombers as “the magnificent 19”. More at Times Online 
 LONDON - Britain will outlaw an Islamist group that provoked anger with a plan to march through a town where British troops killed in Afghanistan are honored, the interior minister announced Tuesday. After a media outcry and criticism from politicians, the group Islam4UK dropped plans to march through the town of Wootton Bassett in southern England, saying it had successfully highlighted the plight of Muslims in Afghanistan. Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the ban aimed to help prevent terrorism. It will take effect Thursday and make it a criminal offence to be a member of Islam4UK, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. "I have today laid an order which will proscribe Al Muhajiroun, Islam4UK, and a number of the other names the organization goes by," Johnson said in a statement. "Proscription is a tough but necessary power to tackle terrorism and is not a course we take lightly." Johnson said the organization was already banned under two other names -- Al Ghurabaa and The Saved Sect -- and militant groups should not be able to circumvent proscription simply by changing their names. Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week denounced the group's plan to march through Wootton Bassett, where mourners regularly line the streets as coffins of British soldiers flown back from Afghanistan pass through on their way from a nearby air base. The government is keen to show it is tough on Islamist radicals after a Nigerian who had studied in London tried to blow up a plane flying into the United States on December 25. With a general election looming in the coming months, ministers do not want voters to see Britain as a haven for extremists. The leader of Islam4UK, Anjem Choudary, told BBC radio the ban would not prevent him from continuing his campaigns. "We won't be using those names and those platforms which have been proscribed, but I can't stop being a Muslim, I can't stop propagating Islam, I can't stop praying, I can't stop calling for the sharia," he said. "That is something which I must do, and ultimately I will pay whatever price I need to for my belief." Islam4UK has links to Islamist militant leader Omar Bakri Mohammed, who has been banned from entering Britain. Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King's College in London, said Islam4UK had only 50 to 100 full members, although the group attracted much bigger crowds at its events. "Islam4UK is very much a group that seeks publicity, that wants to be in the public eye, that provokes people in this country, and as a result gets onto the front page of the Daily Mail," Neumann said, referring to a popular newspaper. "That's why the home secretary felt compelled to react." Neumann described the group as a "conveyor belt" toward violent activities, citing evidence that numerous members had gone on to militant training camps in Afghanistan, where they had fought alongside the Taliban. Choudary denied that any member of his group had ever been involved in violence and denounced the ban as a breach of freedom of expression. Reuters
 By Ian Drury and Andy Dolan More than 120,000 people had last night signed an internet petition protesting about plans by Islamic extremists to march through Wootton Bassett. Hate preacher Anjem Choudary sparked outrage by saying his radical group Islam4UK would parade through the town renowned for honouring soldiers killed in Afghanistan. The firebrand cleric said 500 of his supporters would carry 'symbolic coffins' in memory of the Muslim civilians ' murdered by merciless' coalition forces.
In remarks designed to cause maximum offence, he compared fallen British heroes to Nazi stormtroopers and the September 11 and July 7 terrorists. He even claimed his plan was backed by families of servicemen and women. But MPs, military chiefs, moderate Muslims and councillors expressed horror that 42-year-old Choudary was 'hijacking' the town for political purposes. In less than 48 hours, more than 120,000 people joined a Facebook campaign opposing the march by Islam4UK, which calls itself a 'platform' for the banned extremist group al-Muhajiroun. Petition organiser Jo Cleary, who works with service families, urged supporters to express their 'alarm and distress' to Wiltshire Police in a bid to stop the plan. She said: 'This group can march anywhere it wishes in the country but has chosen Wootton Bassett to cause outrage and offence. We need our politicians to make a statement saying that this march will never take place.'
Peter Fullarton, whose son James, 24, was killed by a Taliban bomb only weeks after proposing to his fiancee last year said the Government must ban the march or risk an 'uproar'. He said: 'Not only will it be an incredible insult to our war dead and to the fantastic town of Wootton Bassett, but there could be a riot, white extremists could use it as justification for attacks, people could end up being killed. We lost 108 soldiers in Afghanistan last year. For them, if for nobody else, these sickening plans must be stopped.' Steve Minter, whose son-in-law Serjeant Paul McAleese was also killed by a bomb, said: 'I am all for free speech, but this is an abuse of our tolerant democracy.
'Too many of these extremists have been allowed to make Britain their home because they have won the right to political asylum, then they abuse our decency by putting forward views that would lead to execution in their own country. 'If this march goes ahead - and I hope to God it does not - the police will have an awful job on their hands. I for one will be there to protest.'
Wooton Bassett has a tradition of parading the coffins of local soldiers that died in combat through the town Shahid Murasaleen, from the moderate Muslim group Minhajul-Quran International UK, said: 'Extremists like these always claim to speak for Islam and British Muslims yet they are not qualified to do either. This march will achieve nothing other than to incite hate crime against innocent law-abiding Muslims.' The market town near Swindon has become a symbol of the public's respect for the troops who make the ultimate sacrifice. Hundreds of mourners line the High Street to pay silent tribute to service personnel repatriated through nearby RAF Lyneham. Former mayor Chris Wannell said: 'We are a traditional old English market town who honour very much our Queen and country. If this man has any decency about him he will not hold a march through Wootton Bassett.' Wiltshire Police confirmed that they were aware of the plan, although Choudary had not contacted them. Islam4UK will have to tell police the date, time and route of a proposed procession. A police spokesman said: 'If a march is believed to be likely to result in serious disorder, disruption or damage, then the police can impose conditions upon the organiser. In exceptional circumstances, police may apply to the local authority for an order prohibiting such a march.' Mail Online
 Does Islamist party Hizb-ut-Tahrir pose a threat to Western society? The answer may well be yes -- but that doesn't mean it should be banned. In recent weeks, Britain's Labour government and the Conservative opposition have been embroiled in a feud about, of all things, Islam -- or, more precisely, an Islamist organization called Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Arabic for "The Party of Liberation").
Tory leader David Cameron has been assailing Gordon Brown's government for allegedly funneling taxpayer money to two Hizb-supported schools where students are being exposed to Islamist ideology.
The education minister insists that the schools in question have nothing to do with the group. The issue is particularly tricky because many Britons, within government and out, have repeatedly called for Hizb-ut-Tahrir to be banned altogether. Their ranks included, at one point a few years ago, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. It hasn't happened yet, though, for reasons that will be touched upon below. One thing is for sure: We can all expect to hear more about Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) in the years to come. Founded 56 years ago in Jordanian-controlled Jerusalem, the party is estimated by some experts to have 1 million members around the world. A lot of them are now in jail. HT is banned outright in a number of countries, ranging from harsh dictatorships like Uzbekistan and Syria through countries like Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and Bangladesh, to Western European democracies including Germany and Denmark. Yet the group persists, and in some respects -- judging by the vast amount of literature it continues to produce, on paper, and myriad websites -- it seems to be thriving. The party recently made headlines in the United States when it was revealed that one of President Barack Obama's religious advisors, Muslim polling expert Dalia Mogahed, had participated in a Hizb-ut-Tahrir-sponsored TV broadcast. (She subsequently said that she'd been unaware of the show's affiliation.) The party has undoubtedly been helped, over the years, by the clarity of its ultimate aim: the creation of a modern-day caliphate, an Islamic state that would bring together all the countries of the Islamic world.
Unlike al Qaeda, though, which professes comparable goals, Hizb-ut-Tahrir emphasizes political action rather than force, arguing that Muslims have to be "enlightened" through education, propaganda, and political agitation until they fully understand the need to seize the reins of power in their own countries and unite the ummah, the global community of believers.
According to one of the group's myriad pamphlets: "[I]f the Islamic Ummah were to rise as an Islamic Ummah, she would be more than capable of rescuing the world from the evil forces that control it, suppress it, and make it experience all kinds of misery, humiliation, and slavery." It's this openly revolutionary aim that has gotten the party into trouble in many of the more authoritarian countries where it has run afoul of officialdom. Yet even though it claims to profess non violent means, the party has still managed to get into trouble in more liberal societies for the extreme intolerance of some of its views.
The party became verboten in Germany, for example, after it shared a platform with neo-Nazis. HT officials insist that they are anti-Zionist rather than anti-Semitic -- though several studies of the group's literature have shown that the distinction doesn't always hold up.
The group was proscribed in Denmark after, among other things, distributing pamphlets urging Muslims to "kill [Jews] wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out." When I first came across the group's pamphlets in Central Asia in 2001, for example, I was struck by their references to the dictator of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, whom they ritually denounced as "the Jew Karimov." (He has no Jewish background whatsoever, as it happens.) One of the party's pamphlets stresses that Muslims who elect to leave the faith automatically face the death penalty -- a stricture that would be hard to reconcile with democratic freedoms if they dared to put it into practice. Another source of concern is the group's role as a "conveyor belt," radicalizing members who then go on to participate in overtly violent actions. Its prominent members in Britain have included Omar Bakri Muhammad, founder of the group Al Muhajiroun, which gained notoriety for praising the 9/11 hijackers and harbored adherents who would later be implemented in terrorist attacks.
When British intelligence officials searched the home of Omar Sharif, the Briton who attempted to blow himself up in a Tel Aviv bar in 2003, they found a cache of Hizb-ut-Tahrir literature.
British journalist Shiv Malik claims that at least two major al Qaeda figures, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, originally had ties with the group. More at Foreign Policy
 Osama bin Laden's terror network has perfected the art of masking its unpopular agenda with a recruitment pitch that can hook just about anyone. Last week, five young men from northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., were arrested in Pakistan, alleged to have been eager volunteers for a terrorist-linked militant group in a region rife with insurgency.
The facts remain sparse so far, but this would not be the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that Americans have left their country to heed al Qaeda's call to arms. These men, however, look different -- at least from the outside. The FBI explained that the five don't fit the typical profile of a militant supporter of al Qaeda, the Christian Science Monitor reported. They were from the middle class, educated, and not visibly marginalized from American society. Their grievances were not readily apparent. In fact, these men fit exactly the profile that the FBI and the world should now come to expect: no profile at all. A militant's profile lies not in his age, race, culture, or education; anyone can join or be adopted by the al Qaeda network, the only prerequisite being a willingness to accept the group's radical, cult like ideology.
So if there is a lesson to be learned from these recent arrests, it is that profiling won't work. We need something better. According to family members and those who knew them, the five were hooked in by radical messages of precisely the sort that al Qaeda is known for. They are thought to have watched the militant rhetoric on YouTube, enough to encourage them to take the trip abroad. Across the world, al Qaeda encourages could-be recruits to do exactly the same -- to become muhajiroun or "émigrés" who move away from non militant communities, families, and friends to join the brotherhood of armed jihadists. Indeed, one of the young men abandoned his career in dental school; another left his family only a farewell video promising to defend Islam. Such a desertion seems at first unfathomable. But al Qaeda succeeds because, for more than two decades, the network has waged a successful information campaign that pushes its message out to the world as effectively asymmetrical as its use of suicide bombers on the battlefield. Al Qaeda has dominated the battlefield of the soul among the disaffected, disenfranchised, and dissatisfied.
It promises action instead of discussion. It avows to defend Islam through suicide bombings and mass murder. (Recovered jihadists are often horrified to learn, with the help of mainstream clerics, that they have been duped by a fantastical corruption of Islam, best called bin Ladenism.) More at Foreign Policy
 A New York-based Muslim extremist group known for its unabashed support for violence against Jews and others posted a link on its website Tuesday branding American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) Executive Director, M. Zuhdi Jasser, a "murtad," or apostate. Being labeled an apostate – a Muslim who renounces Islam – is a very serious accusation, often resulting in a death sentence in many places throughout the Muslim world. And while this is not a certainty in all cases and contexts, it is troubling that Revolution Muslim (RM) thought it acceptable to bestow upon themselves the license to label a pious Muslim as such. And it's not the first time the group has slurred Jasser this way. RM's latest attack against Jasser came in reaction to a video, originally posted by AIFD, showing him and U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) engaged in a Capitol Hill forum about Islam's internal struggle against radicalism.
Rather than assessing the complete debate, RM elected to post just one segment (of nine) where, it says Ellison "gives the Murtad Zubi [sic.] Jasser a schooling." We at IPT News must have heard something completely different when we attended and reported on the forum last month. Jasser, a Navy veteran, is a devout Muslim who challenges radical Islamists and advocates a separation between religion and political ideas such as the spread of Shariah law. RM's radical reaction is hardly surprising considering the group's record. As noted in an October 2009 Anti-Defamation League (ADL) "backgrounder" on RM, the group has, on numerous occasions, promoted attacks against Jews, Hindus, Americans, and other non-Muslims.
In one recent case, "RM posted to its Web site a poem asking God to 'kill the Jews' and listing ways Jews could be hurt, including by burning 'their flammable sukkos while they sleep' and throwing 'liquid drain cleaner in their faces.'" Fox News reports that the post was removed and replaced with a more innocuous article soon after it caught the eye of the NYPD. Similarly, just last week, RM posted a video on YouTube in which group member Abdullah As-Sayf Jones rants on the streets of New York City to passersby about the justification for Major Nidal Hasan's wanton act of violence at Fort Hood. In an effort to show Hasan's act had the moral upper-hand as compared to U.S. military actions overseas, Jones says: "This did not take place at a hospital. This was not a civilian target. Not a school, not a hotel, nothing else. This took place at a military base….compared to American military tactics, in which they drive drones over the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, indiscriminately killing Pakistanis. A U.S. drone does not tell the difference [between legitimate targets and civilians]…but yet, here it is, the so-called terrorist making sure specifically to target military targets." In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting, RM also posted a link to another controversial video – this one put out by a group called AIM Films – in which a man identified as Bilal Abdul-Kareem defends Hasan's killing spree as an act against an enemy in a state of war, rather than a criminal or terrorist act. RM's mission, as stated on its website, includes uniting the "Muslim world…under the banner of Islam." In pursuing this mission, RM regularly pushes the limits of 1st Amendment freedom of speech protections in showing support for violence.
This strategy is very similar to yet another New York-based group, with whom RM shares membership and often cooperates: the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS). ITS, "an offshoot of a British group by the name Al Muhajiroun…that supports violence in order to create a global Islamic state," according to the ADL report, has openly shown support for Al Qaeda and has spewed hate against the FBI, CIA, and others. Counter Terrorism Blog
 Shaaz Mahboob Last week, I wrote on Cif about the pressing need for democrats – of all faiths and none – to counter-demonstrate against the radical group Islam4UK on Saturday. Headed by former al-Muhajiroun UK leader Anjem Choudary, the organisation's website frothed about "what Trafalgar Square would look like under sharia" and had originally cited it as the location for their "March for sharia". Our movement was born out of years of collective frustration at the incendiary antics of groups like these, who distort the teachings of Islam for their own political expediency. Moreover, we wanted to stand up for values such as legal and constitutional equality for all, equal rights for women and minorities, and religious freedom, including the right to be free of any faith. Today, we can hold our heads in pride. At the 11th hour, we heard that Islam4UK were cancelling their demonstration, rumours that were initially dismissed as the Choudary camp's standard tactical manoeuvring.
When it later emerged that Islam4UK had indeed sheepishly withdrawn from their own protest, the official reason doing the rounds was that English Defence League members had made death threats towards Anjem Choudary.
What an irony. Al-Muhajiroun have repeatedly praised the 9/11 terrorists as "magnificent" yet they wholly failed to muster up the moral courage to square up to their first challenge from Muslim democrats. They ran scared – terrified by the prospect of an intellectual duel of conflicting viewpoints, in full view of the media and the public. Who knows. Perhaps al-Muhajiroun did receive threats from other far right groups, and were genuinely frightened of the "bigger bully in the playground". The bottom line is this: had al-Muhajiroun dared to march on the streets of London, they would have been outnumbered to the point of toe-curling embarrassment.
For since we launched our campaign three weeks ago, we have been inundated from messages of support and interview requests from places as far afield as Sudan and Australia. Our satirical YouTube video – which made it clear that the offensive demands of groups like Islam4UK are only on the fringe – has had 10,000 hits in just five days, in its various versions.
We have a website: www.seculardemocracy.org, at which we encourage all our friends and supporters to leave their email addresses.
We have also had extensive coverage in the blogosphere. For every comment that derides our support for secular democracy and one-law-for-all, there are six voices of encouragement. Sadly, we were not joined by the Islamic Society of Britain and Inayat Bunglawala's group, Muslims4UK, who called off their own counter-demonstration. Also, disappointingly, we discovered that Inayat Bunglawala had formally requested that the police set up a separate pen, so that they would not have to stand with pro-democracy and anti-sharia Muslim groups such as us. This sort of sectarianism is incredibly damaging, not only to Muslims, but Britain as a whole. Undeterred, British Muslims for Secular Democracy and our supporters went ahead, surrounding the base of Eros with a thriving pro-democracy movement. Piccadilly Circus was teeming with journalists, bloggers, human rights activists, organisations from different shades of the political spectrum, and followers of a wide variety of religious beliefs and none (including Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president). We wish to thank all individuals and groups who turned out on the day – as well as those who were there in spirit – to proclaim the virtues of liberal democracy.
This was a day when everyone set aside their differences and stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the bigots who dream of taking away our freedom and liberty, yet do not see the irony in using exactly these concepts to spread their hate-filled messages. Source: The Guardian
 On Friday, I wrote about the confused message being put out by the various groups which were taking to London’s streets yesterday, including one led by Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, to oppose the ‘sharia now’ demonstration by al Muhajiroun. My post provoked an unexpected reaction – an extraordinary ad feminam attack upon me, on the Guardian’s Comment is free blog, by the ‘reformist’ Muslim Ed Husain which accuses me of displaying zealotry and ignorance and being filled with anger, venom and hatred not to mention also being demented. Such fame! It could turn a girl’s head.
The first question is why Ed Husain was so exercised by what I wrote. After all, this was not his fight; I had made no mention of him or his ‘anti-Islamist’ Quilliam organisation. Much more astonishing was that he was leaping to the defence of none other than Inayat Bunglawala and the MCB. The MCB is an Islamist body which wants to theocratise Britain according to the precepts of Islam.
Last March, the government suspended links with it after its deputy Secretary-General, Daud Abdullah, signed a declaration that was seen as calling for violence against Israel and condoning attacks on British troops in Iraq.
Earlier this year, it boycotted Britain’s annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration ceremony. Its Secretary-General, Dr Abdul Bari, has said Britain should adopt Islamic practices such as arranged marriages and that Britons should follow the teachings of Islam. Moderate it is not.
As I reported below, Bunglawala told me himself that he wants Britain to become an Islamic state. Yet Ed Husain, whose Quilliam organisation receives a great deal of money from the government in order to oppose Islamic extremism, actually extols Bunglawala for having moved to embrace liberal attitudes.
Ed Husain, who in 2007 vividly described in his own book Bunglawala’s anti-Jewish attitudes, now says Bunglawala should not be held to account for remarks he made in 1993 in support of Islamist extremism and from which he has now ‘distanced himself’.
People must decide for themselves whether Bunglawala’s apparent conversion to the causes of gay rights and freedom of speech is genuine. But what about his declared aim of turning Britain into an Islamic state? Does Ed Husain now think this too is evidence of Bunglawala’s ‘liberal’ attitudes? Or must we assume that Ed Husain too must not be held to account for his previous opposition to this Islamist goal?
Now let’s look at what Ed Husain says about me. His article sits underneath a strapline, almost certainly written by the Guardian rather than by him, which says: In her McCarthy-style paranoid parallel universe, the Spectator columnist views every Muslim a potential Islamist terrorist. You really do have to rub your eyes at this. In my blog post which provoked Ed Husain’s article, I praised and welcomed those truly moderate Muslims who were mounting a counter-demonstration against al Muhajiroun, particularly the group British Muslims for a Secular Democracy. I have never said or implied that ‘every Muslim’ is a ‘potential Islamist terrorist’. On the contrary, in everything I have ever written about the subject I have emphasised that there are many Muslims who sign up to secular western values and who are themselves victims of the jihadis. Read more here,,,,
Source: Melanie Phillips
On Saturday 31 October, Islam4UK plans to hold a procession called "March for Sharia" starting at 1pm. They intend to march past the Houses of Parliament where their members will call for the imposition of Shariah law and for the House of Commons to be abolished. This website was set up by a collection of groups and individuals - both Muslim and non-Muslim - to organise a counter-demonstration against those who seek to undermine and challenge our values. We come from diverse social and religious backgrounds but share a common belief in secular democracy and the values of the British liberal state such as legal and constitutional equality for all, equal rights for women and minorities, and the right to religious freedom (including freedom from religion). Source: Secular Democracy H/T: GH
 A planned march by demonstrators calling for sharia law in Britain has been cancelled, police said. Scotland Yard said it would now be contacting organisers of a wave of counter-protests in central London and Leeds, West Yorkshire, to inform them of the decision.
Anjem Choudary, leader of the radical Islamic sect Al Muhajiroun, said organisers Islam4UK had been forced to cancel the planned march from the House of Commons to Trafalgar Square because of security concerns.
But he added a meeting of supporters of sharia law would still take place at an undisclosed location.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) has been informed that today's planned march in central London has now been cancelled.
"Officers are now contacting organisers of planned counter protests to inform them."
The Islamic Society of Britain, which was planning to join other organisations in staging a "dignified, non-violent" counter-demonstration at Piccadilly Circus, said it would not now take place.
A spokesman said: "There's no protest so we won't be holding a counter-demonstration.
"It's a great success that pressure from all sections of the community, including Muslims, has resulted in the Muhajiroun and the hot-heads rethinking their position." Source: Sunday Express
 By Sam GreenhillThe Queen forced to wear a burkha and Buckingham Palace turned into a mosque - that was the vision of Britain under Sharia law proposed by a Muslim firebrand today. Preacher of hate Anjem Choudary even showed mocked-up photographs of the palace sporting a golden dome and Nelson's Column as a minaret.
He was speaking ahead of a demonstration calling for Sharia law planned for Central London tomorrow, which it is feared could descend into violence.
Police are working to avoid a clash between moderate Muslim groups and far-right mobs who have organised rival demonstrations.
But Choudary boasted: 'It only takes a few people to start a full-scale riot in the middle of the city. There are far-right groups hoping to engage us in physical confrontation in Trafalgar Square or Piccadilly. These animals won't come empty handed.'
He claimed: 'The amount of threats we have received has been phenomenal. Bomb threats, death threats, we have received hundreds of them from people saying they are going to come and confront us.' The cleric and self-styled judge of the Sharia court of the UK said he expected several hundred of his followers to march through Central London calling for Parliament to be abolished in favour of the laws of Allah. He said: 'We hope to eradicate man-made law from Britain and the world. We call upon Gordon Brown to implement Sharia law and we call upon the Queen to give up playing God. There is only one supreme being.
When Sharia law is implemented, maybe in 10 or 15 years' time, she would be expected like all women in Britain to be covered from head to toe, only revealing her face and hands.'
If Her Majesty refused, he said she would be 'punished' according to Sharia law. British Head of the Muslim group Anjem Choudary speaks to media in Westminster today to announce plans to force the Queen to wear a burkha Choudary's sidekick Abu Rumaysahl added: 'Buckingham Palace would become a mosque and play a central role in society.'
At a press conference to outline their vision, Choudary brought in fellow hate cleric Omar Bakri to preach by speaker phone from his exile in Lebanon. Bakri, banned from Britain four years ago, launched an astonishing diatribe lasting half an hour in which he called for jihad, saying: 'We do not want ourselves to be judged by a man-made law. The struggle for Islam is a struggle worth dying for. Islam must be defended by the sword.' Choudary and his extremist group Al-Muhajiroun want a legal system in which adulterers and homosexuals would be stoned to death and thieves have their hands chopped off.
He said: 'Thieves would have various warnings first, and only in cases where he has stolen more than £20 of non-perishable goods from a private house would his hand be chopped off.
'We are being realistic, we know it could take time to implement, but it is a fact that in Britain Muslims are predicted to outnumber practising Christians, in terms of going to places of worship, by 2015.' Choudary, who was not wearing a Remembrance Day poppy, said he did not support the sacrifices of British soldiers. He said: 'We are not allowed to feel sorry for those wars fought for land which served no purpose. Only wars in defence of Allah or your family or property are just wars.'
Choudary said the location of today's demonstration in London was being kept a secret till the last minute to avoid violent clashes. Members of the group English Defence League are expected to try to disrupt the event.
But moderate Muslim groups accused Choudary of running scared of engaging with them. Tehmina Kazi, director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, said: 'It sounds like pure cowardice. He is afraid of engaging with ordinary patriotic British Muslims who have a sense of tolerance and fair play.
'We stand up for mainstream Muslims who see no conflict between their religion and being British. Anjem Choudary tries to be as provocative as possible, and everything he says undermines community cohesion and is a slap in the face to every patriotic British person.'
Although Choudary refused to say so, penalties under Sharia law for not wearing a burqa include a woman being repeatedly lashed with a stick or a cable.
Tory MP Patrick Mercer branded Choudary's plans 'extremely distasteful' and added: 'If anyone thinks those views are a step forward they are seriously deluded. They are repellent and repulsive.'
The Islamic Society of Britain said: '99.999 per cent of Muslims despise these people.' Source: Mail Online
 Fanatics: Abu Uzair and Omar Bakri MohammedBy Robert Mendick A militant Islamic sect banned by the Government as a threat to national security has launched a campaign to radicalise teenagers in east London, the Evening Standard can reveal.Al-Muhajiroun, headed by exiled cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, tonight begins a recruitment drive targeting young Muslims - despite being outlawed under terror laws introduced in the wake of the 7/7 suicide bomb attacks on London. Several members of the sect have been jailed in recent years for terror-related offences but there are fears the group is thriving again under a new name. The group has launched a website, Islam4uk.com. It is advertising its first youth conference, entitled Muslim Youth: The Spark of the Fire, at a community centre in Walthamstow - close to the homes of six men who face a retrial over a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. Islam4uk.com is a reincarnation of al-Muhajiroun in all but name. It is headed by Bakri Mohammed, now living in Lebanon, and his deputy Anjem Choudary, its official spokesman. Read more ...Source: Evening Standard
 Preaching ... Abu Saalihah, left, Anjem Choudary, Abu Omar and Saiful Islam with Omar Bakri webcast on wall behindSeptember 15, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Al Muhajiroun a nominally defunct UK group once described by terrorism expert Daniel Pipes as, ""the most extremist group operating in the West today," has resurfaced in London, operating under the guise of the Association for Islamic Research As if their radical credentials needed burnishing, the group is ominously warning of another 9/11 terrorist attack if their demands are not met. Speaking at a rally in East London marking 9/11 Anjem Choudary the former deputy head of the officially disbanded Al Muhajiroun announced that Muslims would take over the UK by dint of numbers and that, "each one was a time bomb waiting to go off, adding that, "about 500 people in Britain become Muslim every day…It may be by pure conversion that Britain will become an Islamic state. We may never need to conquer it from the outside." [Source: The Sun] Read more ...Source: PipeLine News
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
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Obviously I was never going to see eye to eye with the benefitchogging Muslim hate cleric Anjem Choudary, but I didn’t realise how many of his own community think he’s dreadful, too.
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