http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081200503.html
Islamic Cleric Banned From Returning to Britain
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 12, 2005; 12:33 PM
LONDON, Aug. 12 -- British authorities on Friday banned a radical Islamic cleric who has lived in the country for twenty years as part of the government's offensive against religious extremismfollowing train and bus bombings last month in London.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke, in a statement issued through a spokesman, said that Omar Bakri Mohammed's permission to live in Britain was canceled and that he would not be allowed to return to the country from Lebanon, where he flew last weekend.
Bakri was banned "on the grounds that his presence is not conducive to the public good," the statement said.
"This is completely predictable; it's just the final manifestation of their war on Muslims," Anjem Choudary, a close associate of Bakri in London, said in an interview.
"It's completely outrageous; all he has done is propagate Islam here. Where are all the values they say they stand for: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, the right of innocence until proven guilty?" Choudary said. "Muslims will see this as a great victory for Islam and they will see that Islam is the superior ideology. The flip side of democracy is dictatorship."
But others among Britain's two million Muslims expressed satisfaction at the banning of Bakri, whose organization was singled out by Prime Minister Tony Blair last Friday in a speech outlining new measures to punish those who promote or incite terrorism. Bakri has been the subject of angry tabloid headlines recently for saying that he would not inform police if he knew of another planned terror attack on the United Kingdom.
"Most Muslims are happy he's gone," said Asghar Bukhari, of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, a London-based pro-democracy group that advocates Muslim involvement in democratic process rather than violence. "I don't think Muslims ever bought that he was a threat to national security, but he was such a vocal pain in the backside that he increased racial tensions in the country."
Still, Bukhari said in an interview, many Muslims question whether the government acted properly by banning Bakri.
"If he was not advocating violence, do we just throw people out because they are nasty people?" he said. "Was he really a threat, or was the government reacting to media headlines demonizing him?"
Debate over the balance between civil liberties and national security is raging in Britain following the announcement of Blair's proposals, followed by the government's decision Thursday to detain ten foreign nationals and deport them for being a "threat to national security."
Human rights activists and opposition politicians say Blair's government is going too far in its response to last month's bombings, which killed more than 50 people and wounded more than 700. Police said the attacks were carried out by young Muslim men largely from the country's Pakistani and East African communities.
Although Britain has long prided itself on its tolerance of free speech and immigrants that other countries considered undesirables, Blair said the "mood" in Britain was changing and required a crack-down on religious leaders and others who promote or "glorify" acts of violence.
Those rounded up on Thursday are said to include Abu Qatada, a radical cleric who investigators said is closely tied to the al Qaeda terror network. Clarke said Thursday that a new agreement with Jordan, Qatada's home country, provided assurances that deportees would not be tortured or mistreated, allowing British officials to deport him there without violating British human rights laws.
Qatada's lawyers and human rights officials have complained that the agreement with Jordan provides no guarantee that he won't be tortured and they have protested the planned deportations. Lawyers for the men are expected to appeal the deportations, which could set up a showdown between the government and judges who have recently overruled aspects of Britain's anti-terrorism laws passed after the Sept. 1, 2001 terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Lord Falconer, Britain's highest judicial official, said Friday that the government was considering legislation that would require government officials and the courts to weigh both human rights and national security concerns in deportation cases.
"We've got to get the right balance," Falconer told the BBC Radio 4's Today program. "Nobody suggests for one moment that that would remove from the judges any degree of discretion in determining individual cases."
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