One speaker at the meeting, held on the anniversary of the attacks in America, told the assembled crowd that the West should "listen to the warnings." We have been. That's why we've been killing turbans, lo, these seven years.
The meeting, in front of a 100-strong crowd at a community centre on the Lea Bridge Road in Walthamstow, east London,
A hundred people? Wow. That's prob'ly as many as you'd get for a theater showing of the original Cannonball Run.
was also addressed by the exiled preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed via video link from the Lebanon.
To whence he bravely decamped when he thought the Brits must surely do the Guy Fawkes thing on him and his kind. They didn't, of course, but they wouldn't let him back in.
His appearance was greeted by cheers of "faith" and "
Suuuuuure you did.
although much of his speech was inaudible due to technical difficulties.
Note to self: When making speeches by Net Meeting from Beirut, don't hire Arabs to do the tech setup.
Walthamstow was home to two of the three members of a gang found guilty of conspiracy to murder. They face a retrial over allegations they were targeting trans-Atlantic flights.
"Murder" has such an Islamic ring to it.
Among the speakers were a number of former members of the banned group al-Muhajiroun, once led by Bakri from his council home in Edmonton, North London. The most incendiary speech was delivered by Saiful Islam, from Luton, Bedfordshire, who praised
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda for their "courage" in retaliating against the "dictatorship and oppression" of the West. He said: "The blame of 9/11 belongs to no one but the American government. They are the terrorists. Sheikh Osama warned America numerous times, it was because of their own arrogance, because they thought they are a superpower and nobody could match them, that Sheikh Osama taught them a lesson -- a lesson they still haven't learned." Mr Islam
... is not the same thing as "Miss America"...
warned that unless British and American troops were withdrawn from "Muslim lands" they would be to blame for the consequences, saying the West would "never achieve security until our own lands achieve security".
"Wake up. Withdraw. Listen to the warnings. Muslims will stand side to side, not just al Qaeda. The actions of the British and Americans have given prominence to al Qaeda. All of us have a part to play in stopping the violence or the next 9/11 will take place in Britain, the next 7/7 could take place locally," he added.
The meeting was led by the lawyer Anjem Choudary under the name of a group called the Association for Islamic Research. He was the last to speak to the group of largely young Muslim men and criticised the Government for persecuting "innocent Muslims" including Syrian--born Bakri who was banned from re-entering the country in the wake of the July 7 attacks.
He also talked of the defendants in the airliner trial along with the jailed preachers Abu Hamza and Omar Brooks, another of Bakri's followers, as well as Abu Qatada, recently released on bail. "They [the Government] say they are civilized but they don't act very civilized," Mr Choudary said.
| Mr Choudary talked about the black "flag of Sharia" flying over Downing Street by 2020, saying 500 people a day were converting to Islam. |
Mr Choudary talked about the black "flag of Sharia" flying over Downing Street by 2020, saying 500 people a day were converting to Islam. He laughed that Muslim families in places like Whitechapel and Bethnal Green in east London were having "10 or 12 children each".