By IRNA,
London : The British government Tuesday defended its controversial decision to proscribe Islam4UK and al-Muhajiroun as terrorist groups, insisting it was not because of its beliefs.
“Any case for proscription is carefully reviewed by a cross-government committee, which has to be satisfied that the organisation in question is concerned in terrorism,” Home Secretary Alan Johnson said.
“The fact that al-Muhajiroun and Islam4UK frequently expressed views which most people – including Muslims – find abhorrent, would never be enough in itself to trigger a ban. In our democracy, only actions can be illegal, not beliefs,” Johnson said.
Last week, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) criticised the government’s decision to extend bans on extreme fringe entities for the “glorification” of terrorism even though they are not associated with using violence.
The MCB also questioned why such right-wing groups as the English Defence League (EDL), which have provoked violence by targeting mosques, were not being outlawed instead.
Others have also suggested that it was a “knee-jerk” reaction after Islam4UK controversially proposed to march through a town in southern England used for the repatriation of UK soldiers to highlight the thousands of Muslim civilian killed in Afghanistan.
In a letter to the Guardian newspaper Tuesday, Johnson said that “anyone living in a democracy has to accept that freedom of speech gives people the right to say things that others find offensive.”
“But all democracies have to set reasonable limits. Freedom of speech, cannot, by definition, be extended to those who use this right to incite hatred or violence – to curtail the rights of their fellow citizens to life, liberty and security,” he said.
“There is a high legal threshold defined by the 2000 Terrorism Act that must be met before the government can outlaw an organisation,” he argued.