On 21 March, Minister for Communities Hazel Blears suspended contact with the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), alleging that its deputy general secretary, Dr Daud Abdullah, had endorsed a Hamas call for attacks on foreign troops, which might include British troops, if they try to intercept arms smuggled into Gaza. Blears’ stand is consistent with Labour’s new anti-terrorist strategy Contest 2 which seeks to confront those who reject ‘our shared values’. In a letter to The Guardian, Blears claims without evidence that the declaration advocates ‘attacks on Jewish communities all around the world’. She has insisted that Daud either stand down or be dismissed from his post before the government resumes contact with the MCB. Not surprisingly the MCB refuses to comply: it would lose all credibility within the Muslim community if it capitulated to such crude threats.
That support for national liberation struggles will be criminalised more and more is evident in the case of six Danish activists from the Fighters+Lovers collective. They sold T-shirts with FARC and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) logos saying that part of the cost would be given to humanitarian projects sponsored by the two organisations. EU law brands both FARC and the PFLP as ‘terrorist’ organisations. After nearly 18 months on trial, the activists were convicted of sponsoring terrorism and given three and six month suspended sentences
FRFI 207 February / March 2009
