London, UK, November 19 – A BBC report today confirmed that the
proposed ban on the non-violent Islamic political party, Hizb
ut-Tahrir, was intended to coincide with Prime Minister Tony Blair's
visit to Pakistan's military dictator, President Musharraf.
The BBC report stated that despite no evidence whatsoever of any links
between Hizb ut-Tahrir and violence being uncovered by the police and
the security services, both Tony Blair and Home Secretary John Reid
have been in favour of banning Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Commenting on these new revelations, Dr Imran Waheed, media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, said, "It is now abundantly clear to everybody despite slander, vilification and distortion of our views that Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political party that is at the forefront of challenging tyranny and dictatorship – far away from the lies of violent extremism and terrorism.
"From the very beginning, since the proposal to ban our organisation was first mooted, we said that this was due to the pressure placed on Britain by the dictators of the Muslim world, who wanted Hizb ut-Tahrir's political work to be stifled. This is further evidence that this was the case."
"We accept that it is undoubtedly true that our organisation causes the government considerable political and diplomatic discomfort, in that our campaigning against dictators in the Muslim world, many of whom are allies of the government – such as General Musharraf and Presidents Karimov and Mubarak – exposes its hypocrisy. It may be that the government hoped that a ban, though legally unjustifiable, would hamper our exposing of this hypocrisy from a government that has prosecuted an illegal war in Iraq, in which over 650,000 civilians have been killed, supposedly in order to remove a dictator, whilst supporting and co-operating with other dictators and tyrants the world over."
"These revelations also put the recent fictitious and slanderous BBC allegations about Hizb ut-Tahrir into a political context. The timing of the report by BBC File on 4 and BBC Newsnight was closely associated with the desire of the Home Office to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir as Blair visited Musharraf this weekend and offered £480m for the 'war on terror'."
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