A Response to David Davis MP in the Sunday Times
Press Release
Sunday, 12 August 2007
Dated: Sunday 12 Aug 2007
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The most recent, and frankly absurd, attack on Hizb ut-Tahrir, (The wrong voice for Muslim Britain, Sunday Times, 5th August 2007 ) is the Conservative party’s latest desperate attempt to counter Labour’s cynical stance on the extension of pre-charge detention. It is degrading to see someone who aspires to high political office resort to an argument based on sloppy research, inaccuracies and recycled and outdated allegations, which are false.
David Davis has the audacity to lecture Hizb ut-Tahrir on the value of life when we opposed a war that he and his party supported, which claimed the lives of over 650,000 civilians. Like this government, he and his party have voiced neither outrage nor disgust at those deaths. Unlike him we have made it clear that Islam values the lives of people in Glasgow , London , New York , Iraq or Afghanistan . Whilst he attacks us for coupling the word “innocent” to the word “civilian”, wrongfully implying a hidden meaning, he ignores his own use of the same term during a Parliamentary debate (26th October 2005) when he said “There are common-sense elements to this which are self-evident: for example that it is always wrong to blow up innocent civilians”.
He resorts to trying to prove guilt by alleging association. Contrary to his assertions, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Muhammad Babar have never been members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and there is no evidence that Richard Reid was ever influenced by “Hizb ut-Tahrir preachers”. He tries to attribute Omar Bakri Mohammed’s views post 9/11 to a previous association with Hizb ut-Tahrir, which ended in 1996. If this ridiculous logic were to be applied to the Conservative party’s
real [not mythical] associations with its former members, they would be linked with actions and beliefs they utterly disagree with. Their former deputy Chairman Lord Archer and former Minister Jonathan Aitken were both convicted of perjury. The fascist Oswald Mosely was once a Conservative MP and the father of the BNP Chairman Nick Griffin was once a Conservative counsellor. Does Mr Davis believe that these examples prove his party is a conveyor belt to perjury and fascism?
He recycles the false assertion that Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks to establish a Caliphate in the UK , which is contradicted on the first page of our pamphlet – “Radicalisation, Extremism & Islamism – Realities and Myths in the War on Terror”- that he himself quotes from in the article.
Mr Davis writes, with unintended irony, that: “Perhaps most significantly, HuT fails to explain why legitimate grievances and genuine reform cannot be addressed by participating in our political system, rather than opting out”. His dishonest call for a ban on a non-violent organisation, simply to look tough on security, provides ample explanation of why cheap Machiavellian politics can never address the complex issues facing Muslims locally and globally. Is it surprising that so many people mistrust politicians when they spin arguments for political gain, or allow themselves to be deceived by those who feed them falsehoods? Is it surprising that almost forty percent of the electorate ‘opt out’ of the system?
He seems outraged that we criticise secular liberal democracy, when there are attempts at imposing this political model by force on the Muslim world despite its wholesale rejection there. Unlike Hizb ut-Tahrir, he offers no alternative to the failed colonialist model of the past century in the Muslim world. A model that perpetuates political and economic injustice.
We call for real solutions based the noble Islamic values and beliefs: motivating Muslims towards working for the restoration of Caliphate in the Muslim world; motivating all people in general to stand against the tyranny that exists there – tyranny that is perpetuated by British government policy; and a real engagement between Muslims and non-Muslims to further understanding between communities in Britain. Ours is a serious and positive agenda for Muslims, presented at our hugely successful London conference last week. Sadly, his article is the tired rhetoric of the past.
Dr Abdul Wahid
Chairman UK Executive Committee
Hizb ut-Tahrir
www.hizb.org.uk
5th August 2007
