well said. i would love there to be a good turnout to oppose this planned demo and any others by this group. i think its likely that there will be some form of opposition from the left on the day (despite your claims), my worry is whether it will be soley an anti islam4uk or will it it incorporate anti war an anti nationalism into it.

I think you summed up the situation very well............. I agree wholeheartedly.

Absolutely spot on - one of the best pieces I've read on here in a while. It's questionable whether the event will happen, I personally think Choudary & Co. simply made the announcement to gain publicity. Islam4UK need to be opposed whether they appear, and on the same level that we would oppose the EDL or the BNP. No to fascists, racists & reactionary biggots of all colours.

It states at www.islam4uk.com that Islam4UK is "a platform for the global front Al-Muhajiroun", so who are Al-Muhajiroun?

Nafeez Ahmed addressed this question in his written evidence before the Parliamentary 'Prevent' Inquiry,  http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-written-evidence-before.html and, in-a-nut-shell, he implies that they are having their strings pulled by western "intelligence" agencies, the sections that mention Al-Muhajiroun:

20. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is only one Islamist extremist organisation that has been implicated in the fomentation of terrorist plots in Britain - al-Muhajiroun. Founded by Syrian cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed in 1996, the group has undergone several changes of name (al-Ghurrabah, the Saved Sect, al-Sabiqoon al-Awwaluun) to avoid the effects of government proscription - but has never been proscribed under its original name. Although Bakri was banned from returning to Britain after he travelled to Lebanon a month after the 7/7 attacks, in June this year al-Muhajiroun was officially re-launched under its founding name in the UK by Bakri's deputy, Anjem Choudary.

21. Every major Islamist terrorist plot in the UK, including 7/7, the fertiliser bomb plot, the liquid bomb plot, and so on, have been linked to al-Muhajiroun. Both Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer (the lead 7/7 bombers) had been al-Muhajiroun members, as had others convicted in relation to different plots. Al-Muhajiroun founder Omar Bakri had advanced warning of the London bombings in the preceding year, and six months before the attacks had called his followers to embark on jihad on British soil.[22]

22. Officially, British authorities deny al-Muhajiroun's involvement in planning, organizing or carrying out terrorist attacks in the UK. The response from Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke to questions on Panorama about al-Muhajiroun's involvement in 7/7 was that the group "did not feature in the significant part at all."[23] However, al-Muhajiroun's primary function is neither logistical nor operational, but consists of providing a radicalizing social network that employs ideological techniques to indoctrinate and motivate recruits, as well as providing access and connections abroad through which recruits may receive opportunity to undergo terrorist training with groups associated with al-Qaeda.[24] Thus, a study by the Centre for Social Cohesion finds that 15 per cent of convicted terrorists in the UK were either members of al-Muhajiroun or knew members of the network. In the last decade, "one in seven Islamist-related convictions" have been linked to al-Muhajiroun.[25]

23. Al-Muhajiroun exploits grievances not only about perceived discrimination in Britain, but especially about British foreign policy in Muslim-majority countries. A joint Foreign Office and Home Office report in April 2004 concluded that among the factors attracting young Muslims to extremism is "a perception of 'double standards' in British foreign policy, where democracy is preached but oppression of the 'Ummah' (the one nation of believers) is practised or tolerated e.g. in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya; a consequent sense of helplessness over the situation of Muslims generally; the lack of any real opportunities to vent frustration."[26] This frustration is galvanized to inculcate an 'Us' and 'Them' mentality in which violence against 'Their' (Western) civilians is justified by misappropriation of Islamic language and symbolism as a response to 'Their' killings of 'Our' (Muslim) civilians abroad.[27]

24. Intelligence Co-optation of Islamist Extremists

Here, the role of British and American intelligence policy in directly and indirectly facilitating the activities of Islamist extremist networks becomes significant. According to senior government and intelligence officials, at the time of al-Muhajiroun's founding in 1996, the network was mobilized by MI6 to send British Muslims to Kosovo - coinciding with British and American military assistance to the Kosovan Albanians.[28] This continued prior actions in the former Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1994, whereby British and American military-intelligence services facilitated the influx of mujahideen fighters. Dutch intelligence files show that the Pentagon airlifted many al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters directly from Afghanistan and elsewhere into Bosnia.[29]

25. According to Graham Fuller, former Deputy Director of the CIA's National Council on Intelligence, the selective sponsorship of al-Qaeda terrorist groups after the Cold War continued in the Balkans and Central Asia to intensify the rollback of Russian and Chinese power: "The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvellously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia."[30] This strategy has been documented based on intelligence sources, as well as official documents and testimony, in several academic studies.[31] It is also corroborated by other intelligence officials. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who has testified before US Congressional and Senate Committees about pre-9/11 classified intelligence documents she translated, confirms that US intelligence services maintained a "very intimate relationship" with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban "all the way up to September 11," to secure geopolitical influence in Central Asia.[32]

26. Even after 9/11, elements of this relationship were not discontinued. Concurrently, reliable reports indicate that the Bush administration in around 2003 began encouraging Saudi government financing of al-Qaeda-affiliated extremist Salafi groups across the Middle East and Central Asia (particularly in Iraq, Lebanon, and Pakistan) to counter Iranian Shi'ite influence. A Presidential Finding signed by President Bush in early 2008 confirms that the CIA has backed this programme with at least $300 million.[33] In Lebanon, for instance, extremist Salafi groups co-opted by the ruling Hariri faction have been financed by US-Saudi largess as a counterweight to the Shi'ite group Hizbullah. The Lebanese Daily Star reported that the United States had earmarked $60 million to reinforce Interior Ministry forces and Sunni organisations identified as "jihadists."[34] Ironically, a key figure benefiting from this policy is al-Muhajiroun leader Omar Bakri Mohammed, currently residing in Beirut, who has reportedly received material support from Lebanese Salafi networks which he now vocally promotes. In one recent interview, he proclaims, "Today, angry Lebanese Sunnis ask me to organize their jihad against the Shi'ites... Al-Qaeda in Lebanon... are the only ones who can defeat Hezbollah."[35] He is currently being investigated by Lebanese security forces who accuse him of training al-Qaeda forces in Lebanon.[36]

27. Bakri appears to have benefited indirectly from US-Saudi intelligence sponsorship of extremist groups, with potentially deleterious consequences for US and British national security. This disturbing prospect is made all the more worrying given that his extremist network, al-Muhajiroun, continues to operate with impunity in the UK, openly inciting to violence, yet ignored by law-enforcement authorities. Bakri himself still addresses his British followers through video link and internet broadcasts.[37]

28. Violent Radicalization: a Positive-Feedback System

Overall, these factors alone constitute necessary conditions for violent radicalization, but their cumulative interaction creates a mutually-reinforcing positive-feedback system, acting in totality as a sufficient condition and causal basis for a minority of British Muslims to experience violent radicalization:

29. Social structural inequalities and institutional discrimination have generated a groundswell of social alienation, civic exclusion, and political impotence that fuels psychological instability and vulnerability to identity crises in many Muslim communities, including those which are more upwardly mobile.

30. This is reinforced by Islamophobic media reporting, which in turn has fuelled social polarisation between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Britain, contributing to Muslim vulnerability to separate self-identification through negative reflected appraisal, and increasing the ability of extremists to operate among both communities.

31. Foreign policy grievances exacerbate this condition and provide a focal point and critical catalyst for a sense of generic victimization that potentially undermines attachment to British national identity.

32. While the preceding items highlight 'push' factors, the key 'pull' factor comes in the form of Islamist extremist ideology, in the form of organisations which exploit all these circumstances of exclusion, navigating the groundswell of potential discontent to identify vulnerable individuals for recruitment into various forms of ideological indoctrination as a means to resolve their identity crises. The only group in the UK which has been linked directly and indirectly to actual terrorist activity is al-Muhajiroun, and it is this network in particular that should be recognised as providing a radicalizing social network opening material prospects for individuals to participate in terrorist activities that threaten public safety, at home and abroad.

33. The radicalizing activities of such groups in turn serve to feedback into the previous processes of social and civic exclusion, negative perceptions of Muslims, and so on, processes which become further intensified in the aftermath of terrorist attacks or plots by associated individuals.

34. However, the impunity with which al-Muhajiroun networks continue to operate in Britain is not simply a question of lax law-enforcement with regard to their members who continue to incite to violence, but also of deeper intelligence issues suggesting a need for far greater oversight over Britain's foreign intelligence policies, which may have undermined domestic security. Those intelligence issues concern the selective financial sponsorship of Islamist extremist groups for short-sighted geostrategic reasons by Britain and her allies, such as the US and Saudi Arabia.

...

42. Finally, parliamentary oversight over the conduct of the British intelligence services is deeply inadequate. Far greater scrutiny of intelligence policy - particularly the influence of US strategic intelligence planning on British policy - is required to ensure a cessation of activities that have, and potentially continue to, foster Islamist extremist networks abroad that may undermine domestic security. This should include an independent public inquiry into the 7/7 terrorist attacks. Similarly, the trajectory of law-enforcement toward 'widening the net,' which increasingly criminalises and alienates the very communities that need to be empowered, should be reversed so as to focus specifically on charging and prosecuting individuals at large linked to networks (namely, al-Muhajiroun) with documented links to terrorist activity in the UK, and who have a track record of inciting to violence.

Footnotes:

[22] See Ahmed, Inside the Crevice, op. cit.; and Ahmed, The London Bombings, op. cit.

[23] Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Inside the Crevice: Islamist terror networks and the 7/7 intelligence failure (London: Institute for Policy Research & Development, September 2007)

[24] Quintan Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); Ahmed, The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (London: Duckworth, 2006)

[25] CSC Press Briefing, "One in Seven UK Terror-related Convictions Linked to Islamist Group Now Threatening to Relaunch" (London: Centre for Social Cohesion, 1 June 2009)

[26] John Gieve (ed.), Draft Report on Young Muslims and Extremism (London: Home Office and Foreign & Commonwealth Office, April 2004) Restricted Document leaked to the British press, available here

[27] See Choudhury, op. cit. and Change Institute Report for the European Commission, Studies into violent radicalisation: the beliefs, ideologies and narratives (London: The Change Institute, February 2008) pp. 29, 133-137. Also see Ahmed, "Engaging the enemy within: Their legitimate concerns turn into a psychology of victimization", Independent on Sunday (13 August 2006)

[28] This has been confirmed for instance by John Loftus, former US Justice Department official; as well as by Gen. Pervez Musharraf in his memoirs. See Ahmed, The London Bombings, op. cit.

[29] See Ahmed, op. cit.

[30] Richard Labeviere, Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam (New York: Algora, 2000).

[31] See for example Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of the American Empire (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008); Professor Jeremy Keenan, The Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2009). For a shorter analysis see Ahmed, "Terrorism and Western Statecraft: Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations After the Cold War", in Paul Zarembka (ed.), Research in Political Economy (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2006, Vol. 23).

[32] Sibel Edmonds interviewed on Mike Malloy Radio Show (31 July 2009). Transcript available here

[33] For sources see Ahmed, Inside the Crevice, op. cit., Appendix. Also see Brian Ross (The Blotter), "Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran", ABC News (22 March 2007) ; Seymour Hersh, "The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" New Yorker (5 March 2007)

[34] Daily Star (20 April 2007)

[35] See for example Gary C. Gambhill, "Salafi-jihadism in Lebanon", Mideast Monitor (January-March 2008, Vol. 3, No. 1); Bakri cited in Olivier Guitta, "Al-Qaida's Opportunistic Strategy: Part 3", Middle East Times (18 August 2008)

[36] Richard Edwards, "Omar Bakri sought in Lebanon for training al-Qaeda terrorists", Telegraph (3 January 2009)

[37] Ishtiaq Hussain, "Preacher Omar Bakri 'Is a Danger'", Sky News (13 December 2008)

 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmcomloc/memo/previoex/uc19a02.htm

I suspect that the situation is worse that Nafeez Ahmed feels confident to state and that Islam4UK *and* the EDL have both been set up and/or are having their strings pulled by western "intelligence" agencies to develop, manage and control extremism and to provide justification for the "war on terror" and the "clash of civilizations" which are clearly bogus justifications for Imperial Resource Wars in the face of peak oil.

too many people are clamoring to congratulate 'our boys' so as to distance themselves from the Choudary, allowing the right their reflected glory from the 'heros'. Doing this will leave anyone directing legitimate criticism at the armed forces being labeled as extremist.

More fuel , hatred and support for the oil wars.

"Once a Government resorts to terror against its own population to get what it wants, it must keep using terror against its own population to get what it wants. A government that terrorizes its own people can never stop. If such a government ever lets the fear subside and rational thought return to the populace, that government is finished".

Michael Rivero

Perhaps this is true but what shape would a future society take if the two most influential groups left where the nationalist and the religious extremists. in an ideal situation neither should be allowed to gain ground, but in an ideal we wouldn't be having this discussion.

.. great to see this .. and agree with it mostly .. though i have to say i also agree that actually both EDL and AJ are distractions .. if we fall into running around attacking one or both of them we are being distracted from doing the importnat work in our communities

totally agree! its time we started opposing these fuckers, whether bnp/edl/or islam4uk...anyone with a basic knowledge of islam will know that the kind of political islam advocated by islam4uk and other islamist groups is totally opposed by the vast,vast majority of muslims the world over...by opposing them we're not opposing islam....

...along with all other religions, since they are just a bunch of fairy tales used to brainwash people into believing ludicrous things and to stop rational independent thought.

Agreed it might not be a priority, but who says we can't do more than one thing at once?

Right now there is exactly zero chance of Islam4UK taking power. Opposing their ideas is thus not at all important.

On the other hand, the British police-state, which already HAS power, is attacking the free speech and basic rights of this group and smashing basic liberties out of its hatred for Muslims. In this context it doesn't matter in the slightest if it is Islam4UK, 911 conspiracy theorists, Stalinist tankie diehards, Flat Earthers or Jehovah's Witnesses they've chosen to pick on. Basic liberties are what matter.

Bickering about the politics of the group under attack just distracts from the fight to defend civil liberties which is the important struggle right now. You might hate what they say, but if you don't fight for your right to say it, you will lose your right to say anything else as well.

Yesterday's court decision is a DISASTER. It is now enshrined in precedent that offending bigots and Nazis is sufficient reason for a protest to be illegal. From now on, police will take any sign calling someone a butcher or killer, any chants of "shame on you" or shouting at protest targets, to be grounds for arrest. Wait and see.

Meanwhile, thank you soooo much for mudding the water :-(

First they came for Islam4UK and I did not speak out, because I didn't like their politics...

whist western intelligence were ordered to foster it for oil& power reasons. We need to remind people of this & be proud of our stance against it & BNP who until it became fashionable to bash muslims idealised wahabbi states like Saudi Arabia & muslim right wing regimes with Nicky Griffin often heaping praise on them.
I was happy to join the FB campaign against Islam 4 UK & any fascist groups or groups who want total dictatorship, their not interested in debate, all they want to do is cause trouble. I will support discretionally democratic bans not ones were the corporate oligarchs abuse their power.

We protest against the EDL who are little more than an irritant,but we wouldn't dare stand up to extremists because we don't want to labled as islamaphobic.
We are hypocrates we protest against the right wing but these facist are more of a threat than pissed up football supports.
Truth hurts