CAA Chairman and founder of watchdog against anti-Muslim hatred Faith Matters jointly call on Sajid Javid to stop pro-Hizballah march through London

In a joint open letter to the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, the Chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism, Gideon Falter, and the Founder of anti-Muslim hatred watchdog Faith Matters, Fiyaz Mughal OBE, have called on Mr Javid to stop a pro-Hizballah march through central London on 10th June.

The march is organised by registered charities, principally the self-annointed Islamic Human Rights Commission, which the Charity Commission has yet to open a statutory inquiry into despite repeated complaints by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has also launched a private prosecution against the leader of the march, Nazim Hussain Ali, after the Crown Prosecution Service declined to prosecute him.

The joint letter says that the march “makes a mockery of counter-extremism initiatives” and has already provided motivation for a terrorist attack in Britain. The letter concludes: “Please help us to thwart those who seek to portray all Muslims as terrorist sympathisers and those who would walk our streets carrying the flag of an organisation whose sworn mission is the genocide of Jews. Through your Great Office of State, your signature, and yours alone, can stop this.”

The letter in full states:

Dear Home Secretary,

We are writing to you as campaigners against anti-Muslim hatred and antisemitism to invite you to urgently turn your attention to a matter that stokes both forms of hatred. Each year, London’s most iconic streets are closed for the “Al Quds Day” parade, in which hundreds march in support of Hizballah. Many of the marchers drape their children in the organisation’s bloodcurdling flag emblazoned with a dagger and AK47 assault rifle clenched in an upheld fist.

Hizballah seeks the extermination of Jews. Its Secretary-General could not have been plainer when he said: “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Hizballah has acted on its murderous mantra, bombing Jewish civilians from Buenas Aires to Burgas, and it has even been blamed for two bombings targeting Jews in London in 1994.

That this brazen annual parade can take place makes a mockery of counter-extremism initiatives, emboldens those who seek to incite hatred and shames our nation.

It must not be permitted to proceed this year. It is a rallying point for anti-Muslim bigots who wish to portray all British Muslims as terrorist sympathisers, and for antisemites, who admire Hizballah’s stated mission to seek out and murder Jews around the world.

The danger posed by this parade to British Muslims and Jews is clear and present. Last year, the terrorist Darren Osborne decided to ram the march with his car but he confused the date of the march and instead rammed his car into a mosque, killing one and injuring twelve. Simultaneously, the march itself is a font of antisemitic invective, last year even featuring claims bellowed by its leader that ‘Zionists’ paid your government to burn down Grenfell Tower.

This dangerous parade is permitted due to a legal loophole. Whilst the British government has proscribed the “military wing” of Hizballah under the Terrorism Act 2000, the “political wing” is not proscribed, something that even Hizballah finds ridiculous. Indeed, its Deputy Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, mocked the distinction, saying in 2012: “We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hizballah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…Every element of Hizballah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”

Home Secretary, we write to you jointly as a British Muslim and a British Jew who are allies in the fight against racism and extremism, to appeal to you not to permit terrorist supporters who profess only to support Hizballah’s “political wing” to brazenly parade through our capital. We implore you to uphold British values by proscribing Hizballah in its entirety before the next parade on 10th June. Please help us to thwart those who seek to portray all Muslims as terrorist sympathisers and those who would walk our streets carrying the flag of an organisation whose sworn mission is the genocide of Jews. Through your Great Office of State, your signature, and yours alone, can stop this.

Yours sincerely,

Fiyaz Mughal OBE, Founder and Director, Faith Matters and the No2H8 Crime Awards

Gideon Falter, Chairman, Campaign Against Antisemitism