The British government announced on Monday its intention to ban the radical Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir. "Hizb ut-Tahrir is an anti-Semitic organization that advocates and encourages terrorism, and in particular welcomed and celebrated the October 7 attack" carried out by Hamas in Israel, British Home Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.
I have made the decision to ban Hizt ut-Tahrir in the UK.
Their promotion and encouragement of the abhorrent attacks perpetrated by Hamas goes against everything our country stands for.Belonging to and inviting support for this group will be a criminal offence.
https://t.co/WOanBzzAy8
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) January 15, 2024
"Banning this terrorist group will ensure that anyone who is part of it or expresses support for it will face the consequences," he added. The ban will be debated this week in Parliament for entry into force on 19 January. "This means that membership of the group, inviting people to support it and displaying its logo in a public place will be a criminal offence," which could carry up to 14 years in prison, London said in the statement.
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The ban comes after supporters of Britain's long-standing Hizb ut-Tahrir were accused of chanting "jihad" at a pro-Palestine rally in London in October, the BBC reported. The radical Islamic movement, which has never condemned Hamas' bloody attack on Israel, called on Muslim countries that day to "gather their armies and eliminate the Zionist occupiers," The Guardian said.
According to the British Home Secretary, Hizb ut-Tahrir "has a habit of celebrating and welcoming attacks on Israel and Jews more broadly." Former prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron had already tried to ban the move when they were in Downing Street, according to the British media.
A strong influence in Asia
Founded in 1953 in East Jerusalem and born out of a split from the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, or "Islamic Liberation Party," is an international political group that belongs to the Salafist stream of Islam. The movement advocates the creation of a global caliphate that brings together all Muslims from all corners of the world and is governed by Islamic law.
Although headquartered in Lebanon, the group operates in at least 32 countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia, according to the British government, which said in its statement that the ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir "extends to the world organization, as well as to all regional branches, including the British Hizb ut-Tahrir."
Researcher Farhan Zahid of the Free University of Brussels explained in a study published in 2014 that Hizb ut-Tahrir is well established in Central and South Asia as well as in the Bangladeshi and Pakistani diaspora in the United Kingdom. It is in Pakistan that its organization is the most developed, according to the researcher.
Several countries have already banned it for its various activities and for its anti-Semitic and anti-Israel positions, including Germany, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several Arab and Central Asian countries, the British government said.
Attacks on France
Hizb ut-Tahrir is not well established in France, "especially because Muslim immigration is rather from the Maghreb," Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, a researcher at the CNRS, analyzed for Charlie Hebdo last November. However, the Islamic group does not hesitate to regularly attack France from abroad. As in 2010 with a demonstration in front of the France embassy against the law on the full veil or in October 2020 during a rally in front of the France embassy in Beirut against the "Islamophobia" of the French state, recalled Le Figaro last year.
In 2015, after the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, the Islamic group organized a rally in Indonesia at which protesters shouted "France is a terrorist country." Some gathered in front of the France embassy and displayed banners reading in English "The death penalty for those who insulted the prophet."
In 2021, the representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir had attacked Bruno Retailleau, president of the LR group, in a video after his remarks on the veil at the time of the vote on the Separatism law. The objective "of the French politicians and government is to force-feed young Muslims with secular values, to de-Islamize them, to distance them from their faith," she said.