Video: Muslims preach sedition at UK conference

November 2008

Full (long) videos of the conference here.


Robert Spencer

“You must destroy the West” -- so said a speaker at a recent conference in London. The conference featured Islamic leaders openly calling for the overthrow of the British government and the establishment of an Islamic state in Britain -- under the noses of British authorities who, just days before the conference, had announced a new crackdown against “hate speech” and “extremist” preaching. The episode was instructive -- or should have been -- for proponents of the Fairness Doctrine and “hate speech” laws in the United States.

The conference organizer, Anjem Choudary, declared at the conference that “as Muslims, we will not submit to any man-made law, any government, or any prime minister -- Bush or Brown -- or Jacqui Smith. We submit to Allah.” Instead of submitting, he called upon Muslims to rise up: “It is our religious obligation to prepare ourselves both physically and mentally and rise up against Muslim oppression and take what is rightfully ours. Jihad is a duty and a struggle and an obligation that lies upon the shoulders of us all. We will not rest until the flag of Allah and the flag of Islam is raised above 10 Downing Street.”

Choudary called on Muslims to dare to take the risks involved in participating in the violent overthrow of the British state. “There are three types of Muslims,” he said: “those in prison, those of us that are on our way [to prison] and non-practicing Muslims. Brothers and sisters, if you do not fear your home being raided by the Kufar [non-believer] police, you are not enforcing the Sharia [Islamic law].”

Speaking via a live feed from Lebanon, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, a jihadist leader formerly based in Britain but now barred from returning to that country, exhorted the conference attendees: “Do not obey the British law….We must fight and die for Islam -- this is the map and road to Jennah [Paradise].” He praised Osama bin Laden and asserted that Muslims had no obligation to obey secular laws rather than Islamic law...

Evening Standard

But the most provocative was student leader Abu Rumaysah, who spoke to the crowd as if they were trainee terrorists. "Delete unnecessary material from your computers, take precautions not to attract attention to yourself and prepare your family for [police] raids," he said. He added that they should support the families of Muslims who were arrested and that Islam will only take over the UK if Muslims are proactive and enforce Sharia law in their own communities.

"Women need to be covered up, men lashed for fornication [outside marriage] and hands cut off for theft and breaking Sharia law," he said.

When a woman in a burkha asked how he could justify this when Islam was supposed to be a religion of peace, the crowd mocked her. But it was Choudary who rose to put her in her place. "Islam is not a religion of peace," he said. "It is a religion of submission. We need to submit to the will of Allah."