ITS WORSE THAN YOU THINK...

OK, just watched Channel 4's Dispatches on Islamic extremism. A few people I have met very briefly including Shahid Butt who was in jail with Hamza's sons in Yemen, though this doco made no reference between Butt and Hamza. Also a guy I was introduced to as "Mush" from Fun-da-mental who I interviewed here who was called "Shamil" on this programme I think.

The insight into how the government is "tackling radicalisation" would have made me laugh if it didn't look so blatantly ridiculous. There was some guy from the Sufi council explaining radicalisation with graphs on a flip chart. I can just imagine the sort of people we have in government lapping all this up- as I'm sure it makes sense to them. I am absolutely certain anyone even a quarter of the way to radicalisation wouldn't even see him as a Muslim. I'm sure taxpayers money is flowing in his direction. Government ministers praised him as some sort of hero to them. This guy produces a magazine for Muslims which sidesteps Politics. They film him with a very pretty Muslim girl talking about the concept of the "Burk-kini" which is a new swimsuit for Muslim girls.

"Iraq? Afghanistan? No concern of ours. We have more pressing issues at home."

Another Imam was secretive about the government approved ways prepared to counter radicalisation.

"I wont tell you. It is not in our interest that this gets out..."

Very mysterious. More taxpayers money. Utterly, utterly ridiculous.

Good programme.

Starts on Youtube here (The idiot with the flip chart is right at the beginning.)

Channel 4 under fire for letting Muslim extremist defend 7/7

Should Channel 4's Dispatches being giving the oxygen of publicity to a radical Muslim who justifies the July 7 London bombings?

Well she wont talk to me but she's written a letter...

I'd truly love to give you the other side of the story, but as yet I'm just reading it same as everyone else


The wife of Abu Hamza, the jailed Muslim cleric, has complained about her husband's treatment in a high-security London prison.Hamza, 49, dubbed the "preacher of hate", is serving seven years for inciting the murder of non-Muslims.

In a letter to a London-based Islamic organisation, Nagat Mostafa, 46, said her husband claimed to be the victim of racist bullying and Islamophobia in Belmarsh jail.

Her letter to al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies was sent shortly after Hamza - who is fitted with hooks on both hands - underwent surgery in May to remove an inch of bone from his left arm stump, which had become infected.

She wrote: "I would like to bring to your attention the current plight of my husband…

"The reason that his arm needed further amputation was because of the removal of his prostheses, resulting in him constantly putting pressure on the remainder of his fore limbs. As there is no soft furnishing in his cell, he has been suffering considerable pain… After surgery, before he had even recovered from the anaesthetic, he was returned to Belmarsh, only to be told he had to move from his cell to another one. He was so weak and unable to stand that he refused, resulting in him being put in solitary confinement…

"My husband says the racist bullying and Islamophobia against him have intensified."

DRUNKEN BARD PRODUCTIONS

We did the first night of Taming of the Shrew on Friday. It started raining five minutes in, and got progressively heavier all night. Its great doing Shakespeare in a housing co op. At first people went round the houses getting umbrellas and spare waterproofs for the audience members, then in the interval as it started getting heavier someone magically turned up with a marque big enough to cover the whole audience which went up in five minutes.

I thought I had got all the laughs playing Curtis, who is a one-scene "Baldric" character, but my rehearsal ploy of disappearing straight after I'd done my bit payed off as what happened in the end of the play I watched with as much surprise and mirth as the audience.

Crazy drunken eccentric amateurs is everything that makes doing Shakespeare to me and this one didn't disappoint. By the last scene I was standing at the back in pouring rain, laughing as loud as the audience. A row of actors in front of me shouting, laughing, forgetting their lines and throwing their drinks at each other. Perfect. Pictures coming.

We are on again Friday and Saturday this week starting 8pm. If you want to come down email me for the address.

THE TRUTH? ITS REALL:Y FAR OUT THERE.

cheers to Mark.

Cor 'limey who'd have thought it?

...The data, complied from 35 different studies and published in The Lancet, shows that taking the drug just once increases the risk of mental illness by 41 per cent. For frequent users, this rose to between 50 per cent and 200 per cent.

Scientists found heavy cannabis users were the most likely to suffer a psychotic breakdown marked by delusions, hallucinations or disordered thoughts...

...rime Minister Gordon Brown is currently mulling whether the drug should be returned to class B status after his predecessor Tony Blair had cannabis downgraded to class C, meaning possession was not an arrestable offence.

Alternatively, a class B rating could be reserved just for the extra-potent form of cannabis known as "skunk"...

via Chosen Man

...in January, exiled radical Omar Bakri claimed that Islamic extremists were infiltrating the police and other public sector organisations.

Suspicions are growing that the gang behind the failed London bomb attacks could have received inside information about rescue procedures in the aftermath of an atrocity in the capital.

The Daily Mail can reveal that the second device parked near Haymarket was left at a designated "evacuation assembly point" where civilians and the emergency services would have gathered had the first bomb gone off.

Investigators are trying to establish whether the bombers knew the significance of the location.

Sources said it is unlikely that the Met is the only force which may have been infiltrated by Al Qaeda sympathisers.

via A Citizen of Mosul
Iraqforsale.org

Now the FUCKERS are using my excuse...

MISSING BLAIR YET?

via incurable hippie

If she wants to be a "Blair babe" she's left it a bit late no?

Extremism or Extremism

Moderate clerics are incapable of protecting young British Muslims from al-Qa’ida’s radical influence, extremist preacher Omar Bakri reportedly said on Wednesday

"A sign of the power of al-Qa’ida" in Britain was that educated Islamic youths were being recruited for terror attacks, he said from his home in Lebanon.

Bakri is blaming the spread of al-Qa’ida’s influence on the new anti-terror laws for stopping firebrand preachers like himself from protecting the youth.

"Al-Qa’ida are happy that people like me are having to leave the country and people like Abu Qatada is imprisoned, because it gives them more grounds to recruit young Muslims.

"Radical followers used to be controlled by radical preachers, but they can no longer exist in the UK, so they are being controlled by Al-Qa’ida," he added.

This might not be as far fetched as it sounds. Hajj was telling me the other day how Abu Hamza, a long while back mentioned in a khutba that the younger kids who used to call him weren't calling anymore- implying they may have moved on to more dangerous activities. I don't know if I have this is on tape anywhere.

The Crevice plotters left Bakri's posse critisising them for being "All talk." I heard more than one journalist in Finsbury park saying "but they are not going to do anything..." sounding almost dissapointed. I am worried that Bakri is right here, maybe there is extremism and extremism. Radicalisation and radicalisation.

"I always believed radical preachers could control young Muslims. They would do so with protesting and peaceful demonstration, and not violence."

Bakri said he would not have left the UK if anti-terror laws including those banning incitement of religious hatred had not been introduced.

He said the 21/7 bomb plotters deserved to face the consequences for trying to attack Britain, saying: "I never believed that you should try in any way to attack the people you are living among.

EXTRADITION

Controversial Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri should not be extradited from the UK to face terror charges in the US, a court has been told.

Lawyers for Abu Hamza, 49, from west London, told a hearing in London that US evidence had been gained through torture and should not be used.

Prosecutor Hugo Keith denied the claim, saying it would use phone records and the cleric's own admission at a trial.



Hamza faces extradition to the US on a string of terror charges. If convicted he would be held at the notorious Supermax prison, the successor to Alcatraz that is even more secure than the island-based jail.

The court was told of the 23 hour lockdown regime at the prison, where inmates include shoebomber Richard Reid, and the likelihood that if extradited and convicted, Hamza could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Today, a defence witness for Hamza, American attorney and extradition expert Bruce Malloy, told City of Westminster Magistrates Court of the measures Bush had put in place.

He said: "US citizens are barred from financial transactions with Abu Hamza under a power that allows the president of the United States to list individuals and companies. It controls the contact US individuals can have with those.

"This is a statement from the President that the US believes this person to be a terrorist of such significance we have put them on this list that bans US citizens from dealing with them financially.

"Anyone who provided legal services to Mr Hamza would have to get a licence from the American treasury. I have to have a permit to offer legal services to Abu Hamza.

"This is part of the President's unfettered discretion in foreign affairs. Congress has allowed the President to act outside the due process of law.

Ways Forward?

I don't know what sort of faith in Politicians you have, but here is Channel 4's Iraq commision report. One of the witnesses, Patrick Seale gave evidence in the Hamza trial- not that it did him any good. Seale argued that what the prosecution were calling a "terrorist training manual" was actually an historical document of the sucessful jihad of the Afghans against the Russians. The jury agreed with the prosecution.

Uncle J on the roots of and the reasons for a right wing backlash among US students

19 year olds with guns behaving badly? I don't believe it.

And we're approaching, and they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously, 'cause it's doing its job. And my squad leader, just out of nowhere, just shoots it. And he didn't--mother­fucker--he shot it and it went in the jaw and exited out. So I see this dog--I'm a huge animal lover; I love animals--and this dog has, like, these eyes on it and he's running around spraying blood all over the place. And like, you know, What the hell is going on? The family is sitting right there, with three little children and a mom and a dad, horrified. And I'm at a loss for words. And so, I yell at him. I'm, like, What the fuck are you doing?

But who can blame the soldiers? (watch the report)

Family Connections...

Mrs Felix-Browne is travelling to the Middle East today but will be unable to meet her husband as she is still awaiting a visa for Saudi Arabia and his passport is being held by the authorities. She insists that her husband does not support terrorism and has not seen his father since 2000, when they both lived in Afghanistan during the period when it was controlled by the Taleban.

“The only reason I would like to meet his father is to ask, ‘Did you do it [the September 11 attacks] and if you did, why?’ ” she said.

THE ZIONIST MEDIA

An "Extremist plot" unfolds...

You may remember I was asked if I had any pictures of these guys outside Finsbury park mosque a while back. I wasn't really keen on combing through footage to sell to TV news. Having started in 2003 with high hopes of making a TV documentary which would be useful, informative and above all, a step in the direction of some kind of peace process, for me, in 2007 to be looking through tapes for stills of people who have tried to blow up feels like a personal failure.

Nevertheless, its been an interesting experience as one of the first to contact me was Daniel Sandford from the BBC. I remembered Daniel from the first time I was in Finsbury park. It was very easy to see him through the eyes of the locals- one of the smart suited "Zionist media" enemy lined up against humble local Muslims. Such a long time later I was interested to see what I would make of him away from the mosque, and after a couple of emails he very graciously invited me in to the BBC and gave me the full tour includng a look in the newsroom and the edit suites around it as news was being made. I resisted temptation to sit in the chair and ask for the autocue to roll.

In his own "mission control" I laughed when I saw a signed picture of the then home secretary John Reid, thinking what the Islamists I had filmed would make of that. Up on the wall was also a picture of Goya's collosus.

"There was a reason for that but I can't remember it now.."

Looking along the wall, past pictures of the "Crevice" guys, the 7/7 bombers and the 21/7 plotters I eventually came to Abu Abdullah and Hamid. They didn't have any pictures of the others convicted with them. I must have pictures of them but I still don't know which ones they are.

Daniel said that focusing on Abdullah I had chosen the "most fun character" to do, and I can see why. He also thought Abdullah to be the least likely to have terror in his heart. Though the others in the newsroom were obviously busy they were all welcoming and I recognised one of them from the Hamza trial.

We had quite a frank discussion about perceptions of Finsbury park mosque. I put to him the Supporters of Sharreah's complaints, namely that Hamza on the street was preaching very strongly against terrorism and he wouldn't report it. He said that he thought Hamza spoke with a forked tongue. He'd say something which wasn't threatening and straight away add something which was.

"You've seen my examples?" I asked.

He seemed quite familiar with my stuff, including all the old stuff on Socialistwanker but didn't agree with my point of view.

"For me, the Hamza I saw on the street wasn't a preacher of hate. His defence in court was context, but he was judged in a post 7/7 context. " I think I said. Something along those lines anyway.

He didn't agree with that either and knew the guys who wrote The Suicide Factory personally, one of whom has since died. Yet as a fellow enthusiast for "the story" I felt he was still very much encouraging me to follow my own path in all this and sat without hurrying me for 2 or 3 hours giving me advice, which as I had all but given up, was very timely.

In conversation he told me that the Hamza story was no longer under subjudacy which hit me pretty hard as if I had known I would have tried to contact the Hamza family ages ago.

"If Mrs Hamza wants to talk she had better step on it as the extradition hearing could resume at any time.."

I'm on the case but I'm not hopeful.

We spoke a bit about the disturbingly catchy "Dirty Kuffar" song and Daniel said he often came away from the trials singing it. Daniel Sandford singing "Dirty Kuffar" as a "piece to camera" would be just the sort of thing I'd like to include in a film.

On the way out he took me throught the BBC canteen, past a load of media students on a tour. I was really embarrassed as the look of recognition came across people like a wave..

"Ah..Thats Daniel Sandford" and then they would look across and their face would say "WHO THE FUCK IS THAT???"

The next day I went round to Hajj's place.

"No one is going to speak out now." he said, as did another guy who was round who I never met before, but said he knew Abdullah.

"Hajj, he's facing 100 years. If there are people who can vouch for him, its now or never. I got the impression Daniel Sandford said the things he said about Hamza because that is what he believes, yet he still seemed to be saying to me -if you think you can get the other side, then go for it."

Hajj said he would contact the Hamza family.

"Still his children cry themselves to sleep since the day he was arrested. Why did they have to break into his house in the night with guns? He was a public character, they come like a thief in the night."

"Well Hajj, if you guys think so, then say so. Talk to the family, we'll see what we can do."

An idea occurred to me.

"Listen Hajj, if I asked Daniel to give you the same tour of the BBC he gave me, and you guys sat and had an informal chat, putting your views of all this to each other off the record, would you do it?"

His eyes bulged a bit at the idea of going into the "Zionist media epicentre" but he didn't say no.

"Look Hajj, I've always thought you could be central to some kind of solution with all of this which is why I've stayed in contact with you.."

"I just don't want you to go to hellfire, which is where you are headed.." he retorted.

"Look Hajj, I respect that coming from you as I know you care about me, so I'll try and explain to you my beliefs about God and why I hold them.."

I started explaining but he soon lost interest and started dozing.

I hadn't found any images of the 21/7 guys for Daniel, but over the next week or so I started to find quite a few lost bits on the end of tapes, so when someone from Channel 4 emailed I thought I might as well take the tapes in for them to look through for themselves. Compared to the BBC "news hub" Channel 4 is more ramshackle with the staff still living out of boxes after some sort of unfinished reorganisation. As a lot of my tapes were recorded long play we spent most of the time looking for a firewire lead.

I ended up in the newsroom at a desk behind Jon Snow. I've always wanted to meet him, but as he looked round curiously at 6:45, with the news starting at 7 it didn't seem to be the best time to try and introduce myself.

Shame.

Oh and I haven't got any pictures of the 21/7 guys.

O Allah, deal with them for verily they can never disable you O Allah, retaliate upon them, afflict them like you did to Pharaoh and his nation , O Allah afflict their country with flood , make them in need of money and food and persons ..


Jon Snow here with the newsroom latest....

Afflicted by floods
====================

I have spent the last few days "up north" making a documentary for
transmission later this year. Of course it meant that I have seen something
of the floods. I am bound to say that if this had happened in the home
counties, we would never had heard the end of it.

Well tonight, we are in Hull where 35,000 people are displaced,
businesses are in appalling trouble and the bills so far in this environment
have topped £200m.

Gordon Brown (and the Sun) say "Fly the Flag in the face of Terr-r" Scotland Yard say:
Faaarrrrk orrf!

TOURIST OR TERR-RIST?

Is it me? I became a one man terrorist alert in the West End today. Walking up Whitehall with my hood up and an odd shaped guitar under my arm in the back of my mind I was kind of half wondering how long it would take to be aprehended. If I had stuck to my original plan of changing onto the Central line at Bond St I might have caused less vexation.

I managed to walk up to Denmark st, buy a nut (pictured below) for my "Weapon of Mass Destruction", meet my ex on the corner of Oxford st and then go back down Charing Cross rd to sit in a coffee shop for about 45 minutes before a red BMW Police car pulled up as we sheltered from the rain at Cambridge Circus Theatre.

As soon as I saw them stop I knew they were coming over. They saw I had clocked them and reached in for their machine guns just in case, although the "item of suspicion" was leant against a wall.

"You took your time!" I said.

"You caused a few people a lot of worries mate.."

They were pretty cool and didn't even want to open the bag. They ran a name check which came out clear.

"What sort of music do you play?" asked one.

"Sort of Psychedelic Space rock..?"

"Oh you'd like Buckethead then.."

I laughed and said I'd like to film him with his hand on his H&K talking about Buckethead.

"He's got all the albums..he listens to them back at the station" one of the others added.

"I buy parts off ebay and build my own guitars."

The two talkative guys I couldn't really see using a machine gun in anger, but the third, quieter one seemed more like an ex-marine. He gave me my Stop and Search form as a souvenir.

If I was doing a Terr-rist test run I couldn't have timed it any better as I bumped into Hajj when I got off the train on the way home.


"You can't blame them really can you?" he laughed.

I've rarely walked along a road with Hajj, only having met him outside Fisnbury park mosque or at his house. A lot of people stare from one to the other. He invited me to a Cypriot community centre for a game of pool tommorow.

"They are all really angry."

"Why?" I said, expecting news of Muslims being harrased or arrested maybe.

"The smoking ban." he said. "They are all annoyed with having to smoke outside."

Hajj told me he was a mean pool player. I'll find out tomorow.

TEAM AMERICA

"Surrender, you are surrounded," the leaflets said. "If you are a terrorist, beware, because your last day was yesterday. In order to spare your life, end your actions and surrender to coalition forces now. We are coming to arrest you."

Two pro War arguments...