MPS call for ban on Islamic preacher who used Nazi anti-jewish rant in sermon
AN ISLAMIC hate preacher who once cited a Nazi comparison of Jews to “fleas” has been given a platform to speak at a government building overseen by the department responsible for tackling extremism and encouraging integration.
Ebrahim Bham, a South African cleric who once acted as an interpreter to the Taliban’s head legal adviser, will address the Palestine Expo at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster tomorrow, despite Home Office officials urging Sajid Javid, the Communities Secretary, to cancel the event.
Last night a group of Conservative MPS and ex-servicemen called on the Prime Minister to intervene in order to prevent government buildings being used by “groups which oppose our values and ideals”. The Palestine Expo has been organised by the Friends of Alaqsa, whose chairman, Ismail Patel, once publicly denied that Hamas was a terrorist organisation. In a letter written to the group on June 14 the Department for Communities and Local Government said Mr Javid was minded to cancel the event.
It cited “concerns that your organisation and those connected with it have expressed public support for a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas, and that you have supported events at which Hamas and Hezbollah … have been praised”. Mr Patel subsequently threatened to sue, and the department allowed the event to continue, “following careful consideration”.
Recordings of Mr Bham’s sermons can be found on the website of South Africa’s Council of Muslim Theologians, of which he is secretary general.
In one, quoting Nazi Joseph Goebbels, he says: “One day he said that ‘People tell me that Jews are human beings. Yes, I know they are human beings. Just as fleas are also animals. Just as fleas are also animals, they are also part of human beings like that’.”
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group including four Conservative MPS state: “Whilst the Government is rightly strong in its rhetoric, it must back this up by denying extremists of all kinds the platforms they require to divide our communities.”