THE TELEGRAPH: Consistency demands that Hizbollah's spokesman be banned from entering Britain.
As The Sunday Telegraph reports today, the Government has yet to decide whether it will allow Dr Ibrahim Moussawi into Britain to give a talk at the University of London next month. Dr Moussawi is a spokesman for Hizbollah, the Islamist group responsible for a string of kidnappings, murders and bombings in Lebanon, and for violent jihad against Israel. He has yet to apply to the Home Office for permission to enter Britain for next month's lecture, but he has applied for, and been granted, a visa to visit this country twice before.
Not surprisingly, there have been some profound objections raised to allowing him into Britain again. Baroness Neville-Jones, the Conservatives' security spokesman, has noted in a letter to the Home Secretary that there should be "no double standards" on extremists, a view echoed by Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion. The Government, having banned Geert Wilders, the Right-wing Dutch MP who compares the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf, from entering Britain, should not allow Dr Moussawi to come here.
As defenders of the right to free speech, we take the view that it would be better that both individuals should be allowed to speak in Britain, rather than that neither should. However, the objectors to Dr Moussawi are correct when they say that consistency in the application of the law is essential to its credibility and its justification. There can be no consistent justification for the Home Office allowing Dr Moussawi into Britain after it has prohibited Mr Wilders. >>> Telegraph view | Saturday, March 7, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Campaigners Will Seek Arrest of Islamic Radical
Campaigners from the Centre for Social Cohesion have pledged to seek an arrest warrant for Dr Ibrahim Moussawi, an Islamic extremist, who is due to visit Britain this March.
The think-tank said the Home Office would be "beyond hypocrisy" if it allowed Dr Ibrahim Moussawi into Britain just weeks after barring Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, because of his alleged anti-Muslim views.
Dr Moussawi is a spokesman for the Lebanese-based militant group Hizbollah, the military arm of which is banned in Britain as a terrorist organisation.
He has allegedly called Jews "a lesion on the forehead of history" and said of Israel: "Pain is the only language that the enemy understands."
Douglas Murray, director of the CSC, has written to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, warning her that he will instruct lawyers to seek an arrest warrant for Dr Moussawi if he is allowed into the country. >>> By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent | Saturday, March 7, 2009
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