THE MAGICIANS OF THE PHARAOH

OK. Taking it from the top, Anjum Choudhary called me yesterday. He took me by surprise as I don't know him and I was recovering from a pretty good Halloween, but if he hadn't have called I might have been tempted to go to some huge multi rig squat party last night and I'd have missed his event today, or worse still turned up with no sleep in fancy dress on some mad mission so all is well that ends well as they say. I turned up without shoes in Finsbury one friday but luckily a friend pulled me away. I am off too much head battering at the moment. I am sure they would say Allah is decreeing all of this. What did I hear tonight which I didn't hear in two years on the street outside Finsbury? Some stuff about going to the toilet and a story about a bull. Oh and there is a new government policy directed at their main man, Mr Bakri. More of all that in a bit.

I turned up at 2pm stopping off at my favourite place on Brick lane to pick up a singara. There were a lot of people, male and female waiting outside for the place to open. I recognised a coupla people from Mr Waleeds talk the other day. I was looking for familiar faces from Finsbury as there are a few people I am worried about and I'd like to make sure are OK. Its been a long time.

Like in Finsbury I stood back, and stood out racially, culturally and fashionably, not that I was fashionable. Although dressing a bit smarter would probably help me in a lot of situations, and people often tell me to do so I find it a lot easier doing these things being myself from the start. It saves confusion. I don't see any point pretending to be all paly with people or thinking that anyone would view me with anything but suspicion knowing that I am a journalist -of sorts.

Once the seating had been arranged I sat down and read my book. I've borrowed Last Night a DJ Saved My Life from Paula so I read about the early history of hip hop whilst projectors were set up, microphone feed back got sorted etc. I've heard a lot of Muslims joke about how they always turn up late for things, this meeting scheduled for two finally got underway at three o'clock.

I'm not very good at numbers, there were maybe 300? Muslims of which maybe two or three were white faces and a couple of journalists who sood out almost as much as me. I introduced myself to Mr Choudary who sat on the stage in the middle. He started the event talking about Muslim prisoners and a desire to see the black flag of Islam over Downing street. He said that Richard Watson from Newsnight was there, and said that he and the BBC were working for the government and would probably hand their tapes to the Police afterwards. He was quite happy for them to do this, and wanted the Police to be sure of what was going on at his meetings. From first impressions he seems the calmest and most serious Muslim leader I have met so far. He introduced Abu Muaz, Head of the UK Salafi Youth Movement.

Mr Muaz straight away spoke about Muslims living without the Sharriah for 84 years. He said Muslims had forgotten the law and their obligations according to the Koran. He said they had fallen for the western concepts of "I think" and "I believe" and that this was a disease amongst Muslims today. He said that Muslims were calling for communism, socialism and secularism and that a lot of them didn't even know that Islam was itself a social and economic system.

He spoke of a blind Sheik locked up in 1996 who couldn't even speak English. He spoke about Aafia Siddiqui, who had been abducted from Pakistan, raped and tortured in Bagram air base and that a kidney of hers had been removed. He spoke of Abu Qatada, held without charge for years. Now he had been relesed he was tagged and under house arrest for 23 hours a day. He spoke about a Muslim in Leicester who had been pepper sprayed for parking on a double yellow line.

He said that he had to go around with a pocket full of belts to give to kids to stop their trousers falling down. He had spent some time at a big Islamic conference called GPU where 30 or 40 thousand Muslims had gathered. He detailed how he had challenged them. They agreed that a lot of what they were doing was haram but said it was all worth it to get so many Muslims in one place. He said they were confused. They thought they needed to read the Koran for forty years before they understood it and only intended to set about implementing it after that. They read books but they don't struggle. What would Mohammed do if he was alive today?

People practice Islam inside the mosque but outside they are secular. In Saudi Sheiks pass fatwahs which decree that the Saudi army are the mujahadeen, yet their job is to kill Muslims who want to live under Sharriah law. Sheiks in this country decree that it is OK for Muslims to join the army and the Police who suppress Islam. Mohammed said that if you join them, you are them.

He said that he had confronted one of the main organisers of the GPU conference. He had asked him whether Muslims should uphold the law of the Sharriah or the law of the Queen. The guy had said this was a "fikdi(?") question- one he was not qualified to answer. He spoke of a Saudi Sheik (Bin Baz I think) who had decreed that it was OK for 500 thousand US troops to be in Saudi, but in the next breath had said that it was wrong for someone to have a christian maid.

The West pushes freedom but doesn't allow people to defend the freedom of others. The west champions freedom of speech, yet Muslims are jailed for words whilst paedophiles go free. He accused the media of being the "Magicians of the Pharaoh" who would always portray Islam in a negative light, using terms like Terrorist, Fundamentalist and Extremist to describe those who wanted to live under the Shariah.

"What do you expect from a dog? Even if you put the skin of a lion on a dog it is still a dog."

He said that they always invited the media, but they always twist and spin what is said because they are a mouthpiece for the government. The government were now passing instructions to schools to spy on Muslim kids, The NASUWT had approved this and were now informing the Police if a kid drew a picture of a Christmas Cracker.

Mr Choudhary then spoke some more about the labelling of those who belived in Islam as "Exremists" "Radicals" and "Fundamentalists". He said that Newsnight had connected every terrorist plot in this country to Omar Bakri. He said they were blamed for everything for just being Muslims, but all these labels would mean nothing on the day of judgement. He encouraged people to smile in the face of those who would attack them. He spoke of a new government policy, introduced by Jaqui Smith to "Name and shame" extremists and said that the first person on the list was Omar Bakri.

We watched a video detailing the fate of Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo, particularly the youngest prisoner who you have probably seen on the news crying for his mother. His mother said Muslims could help by sending money and by turning up at his court case. The video was paused to introduce Omar Bakri live from Lebanon. This didn't quite work out over the net, so Mr Choudhary phoned him from the stage and put the phone to the microphone.

Mr Bakri spoke against man made law and repression disguised as socialism and caplitalism. He said that people should go back to the Koran and the Sunna which contained the only solutions. He said that Muslims shouldn't obey man made laws and that if anyone ordered them to they should tell them they are a Muslim "Loud and Proud". They should walk, talk, sleep and eat like Muslims. He said that "They" want to silence you and branded the new law of inctement "crazy". He reassured people that names weren't important. Only Mohammed was important. Whatever disbelievers said about them they shouldn't worry.

Mr Choudhary said that they should never stop calling for Shariah law, then he introduced Abu Yahya, Spokesman for the Followers of Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama'aah who would give a talk about "Defending the Honour of the Muslims".

He was maybe the youngest person on the stage. Mr Yahya said someone had challenged a Muslim (In the Koran? I'm not sure) asking if Mohammed had decreed how to go to the toilet. The guy had countered that Mohammed had told them to wash with their left hand, some wierd shit I couldn't understand about stones (piles? clangnuts? fuck knows) and not to face "kiblah" when taking a dump. That probably shut the guy up. I think he said something about the fossilised remains of kaffirs having shit on their right hands. I'm not too sure.

He critisized Muslims for going to the UN. Mohammed had told them that if they went to the kaffirs with begging bowls in their hands "The fire would touch them". He also critisized Muslims for having selfish western attitudes which led them to look after themselves and their families and not worry about Muslims abroad. He told a parable to illustrate this.

If I have got this right, there were three black bulls and a white bull and a wolf who wanted to eat them. Whilst they stuck together they could see off the wolf. The wolf came to the back bulls and told them that if they stood without the white one at night he couldn't see them. The white bull gave them away. He said that this was the US policy toward Pakistan. The black bulls had a discussion like a lot of western Muslims did about Hamza and Bakri. They were a problem. They ditched the white bull.

The next night the wolf attacked the lone white bull who cried "Where are my brothers?". He equated this with the situation in Palestine. Over the next nights he took his chances with the black bulls and picked them off one by one. Mr Yahya equated this with Afghanistan and Iraq. He said that as the last bull died he realised that he had actually died the day he let his white brother down.

Muslims everywhere say "What has Bakri, Hamza and Quatada got to do with me?". Mohammed told them to stand with the Muslim whether he is an oppressor or oppressed. He spoke of the disease of nationalism amongst Pakistanis and Arabs. No one could call themselves a true Muslim unless they wanted for their brother what they wanted for themselves. Taking Shahada (becoming a Muslim) was totally a political thing. It couldn't be seperated from politics like some Muslims say. Musilms would be tested. He berated Muslims for doing nothing about 17 sisters in British jails.

He spoke of an 18 year old Muslim girl who had been taken from a camel train in a raid and presented as a gift to the King of Grenada who raped her. Some Islamic ruler upon hearing this swore that he wouldn't sleep with his wife whilst this girl remained a prisoner and conquered the whole shit, town by town until he rescued her.

He said that talk of the Taliban not educating women was propaganda. He said that the prophet had told them to take half their deen from his wife Aysha. The Taliban had only closed schools when there was a civil war. People laughed when they said Islams black flag would one day be over Downing street. People laughed at the prophet when he said they would one day conquer Persia too.

Mr Choudhary closed this first half of the meeting by stating his belief that a Covenant of Security existed for them in this country as their life and wealth was protected by our laws, but that they should never stop exposing man made law, and never stop calling for the Shariah which was inevitable. Just before the break Mr Choudhary said that all kaffirs were liars. Even if they spoke truth sometimes they were just kaffir liars who spoke the truth.

I couldn't stay for the second half. I left thinking that if everyone at Finsbury thought this lot were in league with MI-5 they were probably wrong. Its certainly an interesting theory which is no doubt popular with conspiracy heads. Maybe I will get round to asking them, to see what they say. Muslims in the press used to say that Hamza was giving Islam such a bad name that he was probably working for MI-5 himself. I also left wondering what I could do with these guys on film which hasn't already been covered. Maybe I could report what they say without "twisting or spinning" or becoming a "Magician of the Pharaoh". Maybe I could be a "Kaffir liar who spoke the truth." Some ambition eh.

Report what people say?

What- Journalism? Here? ha ha ha ho ho. Seriously?

Naaah.

Boring.

No one would be interested in that.


Islam4UKs own video footage of the event is here


Richard Watson presented some of his work on "The Rise of the British Jihad" and chaired a discussion at the Frontline club a few days ago which you can find online here.

UPDATE:

Islamic radicals make mockery of hate laws in The Evening Standard

Why Hasn’t Anjum Choudhry Been Arrested from Harry's Place

..

ABU WALEED

I'm an old mate of Atilla so don't worry I won't kill u!

I've been following the tabloid sensations of Abu Waleed over the last coupla weeks. As I said I never met him and questioned the tabloids associating him with Finsbury park. He emailed last night and phoned this morning. We had a long chat about a lot of things Hamza, Atilla, Quilliam Foundation, MI-5, Al Mujaharoun, Bakri, Abdullah Al Faisal, Al Qaida etc. I wrote four or five pages of notes.

We covered stuff from the 1990s right up to the present. Most interestingly for me, he filled me in on the tension between Al Muj and Finsbury park I used to hear about when I was up there and the difference in media style and focus between Hamza and Bakri over the years. He speaks quite fast and I don't do shorthand but I think I got everything. After the roller coaster of knowing Atilla I haven't been jumping to delve back into the story of Fundamental Islam in the UK but talking to Abu Waleed, like talking to Atilla I can't help but be intrigued by the particularly modern British nature of someone talking about such an age old religion.

I am a bit tied up at the mo but I will translate my notes over the next coupla days.

PREACHERS OF HATE

A term coined by the media, and denied by Hamza and Atilla is adopted by Islam4UK who are protesting today outside the US Embassy in London.

"Indeed, there has been an excellent example for you in Ibrahim and those with him, when they said to their people, ‘Verily, we are free from you and whatever you worship besides Allah! We have rejected you, and between us and you is hostility and hatred forever, until you believe in Allah Alone." [Al-Mumtahinah, 60:4]

This was the da'wah (preaching) and hikmah (wisdom) of Ibrahim (AS) and his followers - who, if alive today, would undoubtedly be accused of preaching hatred. His da'wah was not diluted or sugar-coated, to please the authorities or sceptical disbelievers. Rather, his message was a message of hate for those who disbelieved in Allah (SWT) and a message of love, peace and glad tidings for the servants and worshippers of Almighty Allah (SWT).

This is my preachers of hate video from Finsbury park in 2003

TACKLING EXTREMISM

This is very interesting. I've seen this guy before. Choosing my words very carefully as one who talks to these "extremist" types on occasion, I think he has often said things I can relate to as sensible. Obviously he is a lot closer than the useless expensive horse shit about "tackling extwemism" which comes from government. Because he is taking government money a lot of Muslims are going to say that he has made a deal with Zionists and kaffirs and is therefore a kaffir.

This has been edited to tell a story, media types are pinning their hopes on this guy. I'd like to see the raw footage. Not surprisingly I am ominously drawn to attend one of these meetings. I can be honest and say that although I have a huge amount of disagreement with these guys they are brave to still be meeting like this. I don't know what they are saying, I don't trust that a true picture of what they are saying is making it to TV. I saw Hamza preach for too long to make that mistake.

Watching Inyat Bungawala describing them as hooligans who can't be reasoned with made me smile, remembering Finsbury park. Were they hooligans? Yeah, some of them. And as so many were masked in was very hard to tell the difference between hooligan and sincere Muslim. When Atilla gets out I'm going to ask him the truth behind all this- as far as Finsbury is concerned anyway.

I have no idea who these lot are or if anyone ex-Finsbury has drifted toward them. As I have said before everyone Finsbury when I used to go there thought Choudary, Bakri et al were MI-5.

"We don't say any of this and are demonized and arrested. They say everything and remain free?"

There is a loud voice inside me saying "No! Don't do it! Stay away! Stick to your music, find a new chick to entertain yourself."

Christ knows

Hamza Related Stuff

The Islamist website of the Al-Maqrizi Center in London has posted a recording of extremist Sheikh Abu Hamza Al-Masri, currently serving a prison sentence in the U.K., reading poetry in which he asks Allah to grant him a martyr's death.

It was not reported how the recording was smuggled out of the prison.

Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, September 22, 2008


David Perry who prosecuted Hamza is sitting on the De Menezez inquiry in the Oval..


OUTLAWED HATE GROUP IN FRESH TERROR THREAT

ISLAMIC hate preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed’s outlawed group has warned it plans its own Twin Towers-style terror attack...

...Al Muhajiroun is widely believed to have influenced the 7/7 ringleader Mohammed Siddique Khan to lead the suicide bomb attacks that killed 52 people in the capital in 2005.

Choudary, speaking at an Islamic conference at the Al Huda Centre in Walthamstow, east London, said: “The country is splitting into two camps and there is the prospect of another 9/11 or 7/7 attack.”

During the conference two videos were shown to the audience which featured several convicted terrorists.

Another speaker, Abu Waleed, a disciple of jailed preacher Abu Hamza, joked about Muslims carrying rucksacks and said Downing Street and the White House – along with the rest of the world – would soon be under Sharia Law...

No idea. I did a google search, if this is Abu Waleed I never saw him in Finsbury park. Muslims have lots of names. The scant information I got said that there was some distance between Hamza's group and Al-Mujharoun. If they are meeting again I will try to get along.

Could cry, wouldn't help.

In spite of her faith that suicide and murder would take her to paradise, Ibrahim showed flashes of teenage confusion. "At the end of every sentence, she kept saying 'I want my mum'"

Victims or Villans? Iraqi Female Suicide Bombers in The Guardian

also

Mr Choudary then referred to Bakri’s notorious aim of flying the ‘flag of Sharia’ over Downing Street, claiming that this would happen by 2020 as 500 people a day were converting to Islam and laughing that Muslim families in places like Whitechapel and Bethnal Green in east London were having ‘10 or 12 children each’.

Next 9/11 will be in Britain This is London

This reads like Its the Stupid Demography but from the other direction innit.

SHEIK GOOGLE

Interesting interview with Omar Bakri May 1st 2008. He talks about his exit from the UK, his views on his "Islamic duties" here, where he went wrong, The Quilliam Foundation etc. Fascinating stuff.


If we were extreme from the truth then we deserved condemnation but clearly we were extreme from the falsehood. Recent events have vindicated our ideas and approach. But now unfortunately I am no longer in the UK to play a useful role. However, I believe we succeeded in laying the seeds for robust Islamic activism in the UK. Nevertheless, the most disgruntled and radical youths are currently not receiving any proper guidance and direction. So they have turned to Sheikh Google [ie the Internet] for direction. This has increased the threat of terrorism. These people will adopt and implement what is suitable for Afghanistan in the UK.

MALUNG TV NEWS

I was watching TV at a friends place last night. I was about to switch it off and switched it over totally by accident to see Rachel and Glen on Newsnight. Abu Izadeen was a favourite radical voice for them over a long time. The show was presented by my favourite brown eyed ex- BBC London presenter who is looking even more sexy as she gets older. She had a right go at Anjum Choudarry who got in his Blair Bush Corporation one liner and is the only one who mysteriously still manages to stay out of the nick somehow.

I'm not sure that I agree with the whole concept of "radicalization" how it is presented here. If the idea that we are totally right and they are totally wrong was true, that "they" have been "brainwashed" by an "evil ideology" we wouldn't be at risk. Continually. I am not sure how I can join in the debate really as it seems so obvious to me but when I tell anyone else they glaze over.

I don't think I met a single person in Finsbury park who appeared to be brainwashed in all the years I used to pop up there. I think the concept of "brainwashing" as it is presented is a serious red herring which will only lead to less understanding and more danger. I wish everyone would get over this whole brainwashing fantasy. No one is brainwashed. Except perhaps the guy at 4.00 they name "Osama" on Newsnight's Al Mujaharoun video he is brainwashed. People should stop with this "swinging pocket watches" fantasy. Now. People believe things. I think certain Koranic verses we all know by now have become alive to a worrying number of Muslims who are reacting to events in the world as they see them. Its not rocket science, I mean they are making the fucking videos. They are telling us really clearly.

Is that a controversial view? I don't know. I'm just selfish. I don't want to be bombed.

via Paula

Ketamine breakthrough in treating depression

the class C drug, which is abused for its hallucinogenic effects, is now being hailed by scientists as a breakthrough treatment for severe depressives.

New research has found that patients who have failed to respond to more conventional drugs can be cured of depression within as little as two hours with an injection of ketamine...

...Ketamine is one of several banned drugs that have been found to have therapeutic benefits. Ecstasy has proved effective for traumatised servicemen who have fought in Iraq, and trials are also taking place involving rape victims who are given the drug to help them to recount their ordeals without triggering anxiety. Scientists have used LSD to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety.

However, mental health charities have reacted with caution to the results of the ketamine trials. The charity Sane points out that many people with mental health problems already self-medicate using illegal drugs, and that not enough is known about their long-term side effects.

People self medicate? No shit. I'd say there was some truth in this. K took away my depression and transported me to a world of euphoria- for at least two hours..

Also LSD testing begins in Switzerland:

Dr. Gasser's study received final approval from the study's Ethics Committee (the Swiss IRB equivalent) on July 12, 2007. The protocol is for a preliminary 12 patient, double-blind design to gather basic information on safety and efficacy for this patient population and to develop a treatment approach. Though there has been substantial prior research with LSD in cancer patients that demonstrated safety and some degree of efficacy, that research was conducted over 35 years ago. For this study to follow modern drug development standards, we must start from scratch and build carefully.

Carefully does it.

JAWAD AKBAR: "I think the club thing you could do, but the gas would be much harder. Club stuff - there's people who even get in yeah, with like they're searching stuff yeah, but it's only the bouncers that search you."

"Bruv, just before we thing, you don't think this place is bugged, do you?"

OMAR KHYAM: "No, I don't think it's bugged bruv, at all. I don't even think the car is bugged. What we're doing, if they knew about it they wouldn't wait a day bro, they wouldn't wait one day to arrest me, yeah, or any of us."

Very sobering. Very chilling to read. I actually popped into this trial a long while back but didn't blog about it because of reporting restrictions. I got a horrible feeling that I had actually spoken to Anthony Garcia outside the mosque in Finsbury park. Its horrible to think that whilst I was fairly flippantly filming around Hamza's posse, cynical about any idea of home grown Muslims meaning us harm, two plots were actually being hatched. Its horrible for me as a fairly liberal British person to read words of terrorism in the "street language" of my country. I heard Hamza over and over preaching against bombing innocents here and Abdullah had me convinced, even as I was reading about the people of Al-Mujaharoun justifying terrorist acts in Europe. It doesn't mean of course that others around them didn't feel differently, and the security services have to distinguish between them. Good luck. I'm sure conspiracy theorists will take the unexplored link with the 7/7 bombers and the refusal of the authorities to launch a public enquiry as evidence of "false flagging". Fuck knows. I'm a long way out of all this. I just want to play my guitar.

STRANGE PERSPECTIVES

I was speaking the other day to a professional photo-journalist who has covered events in Finsbury park (although I did not meet him there) and Mr. Bakri's various press conferences over the years.

He said that although Mr Hamza's friends were hostile to him, he noticed that he had a certain charisma, sense of humour and raport with his young audience which had not been apparent through the TV.

He also said that the more of Mr. Bakri's press conferences he went to the more he believed that Al-Mujharoun were actually in league with the right-wing press. He cited an occasion when all the left wing journalists were just scribbling, totally uninterested, whilst the right wing guys were all taking everything down dutifully and asking the guys to repeat things they had missed out.

"Everything they said to the media seemed to be timed to cause the most controversy and one of them would always film everyone, and all that went on in the room."

TOURISTS AND TERRORISTS

Ridiculous. Al-Muhaajiroun call a protest in Trafalgar square and who turns up? Well first a group of Sikhs maybe 50 strong with blue turbans. Apparently Al-Muj have been slagging off Sikhism on their website, prompting all these people to organise themselves to come down without even a communal website.

The next group to turn up were the National Front, the smallest protest group here who had a flag saying that Britain should be for whites. I tried to talk to them, to get their views but they were unforthcoming.

"We've got photo's of you just the same as you have of us. We know what you are doing."

" What am I doing?"

I hoped they would enlighten me as I am not sure myself. I don't see anything wrong with recording peoples views. Do I look like a journalist? Do I look like a Muslim? They made further derogatory comments about my piercings and asked if I knew Graham Norton and if the spots on his arse had healed up yet. They also had a banner saying "British and Proud"

It was such a beautiful day, the square seemed to be teeming with beautiful black women, and a small pen full of pale faces who would rather they were not here. I'd love to be racist but I'm afraid I can't help thinking that mixed race women are often the most beautiful things about this planet, besides I am half second generation immigrant myself. Are these guys really only attracted to white women? One of the reasons I wouldn't move out of London is that I would be surrounded by white English people.

The NF site is interesting though. Along with a plan to peacefully repatriate people of colour over a 15 year period they also advocate workers running their own factories and believe there should be as diverse media as possible without monopoly ownership from abroad. It's a shame these people wont talk to me.

A larger group of UBA guys (and one or two girls) turned up. They had the largest "British and proud" banner by far. I recognised a few of them and was hoping to talk to them. I asked for Stephen ( the UBA guy who made contact with me) and said that I had arranged to talk to him.

" Course you have..." they said, instructing each other not to talk to me.

There were two minor scuffles, I think one person from the UBA was arrested and one from the NF. And Al-Muhaajiroun? I've heard a rumour they were in Essex.