Muslim Leaders Warn Extremist-Crackdown Will Produce Terrorist Martyrs

Once again, maybe I'm just being paranoid, but this sounds an awful lot like a threat:

Charles Clarke has been warned that moves to expel radical preachers, which could begin by the weekend, could backfire by turning extremists into martyrs and increasing prejudice against law-abiding Muslims.

The Home Secretary set out a series of "unacceptable behaviours" yesterday that would be used to exclude foreign extremists from Britain and remove those already in the country. They include "fomenting, justifying or glorifying" terrorism, although he has dropped an earlier proposal to outlaw views "the Government considers to be extreme and that conflict with the UK's culture of tolerance".

The list of criteria foreshadows a new wave of expulsions from Britain under powers announced by Mr Clarke last month. He said yesterday: "The terrorist threat facing the UK remains real and significant and it is right the Government and law enforcement agencies do everything possible to counter it."

He won backing from the main opposition parties, but provoked alarm among Muslim leaders. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "Sending [extremists] out may turn them into unwanted heroes who may then be free to export their vile thoughts, if such be the case, from exile." The Islamic Human Rights Commission said the plans were a "criminalisation of thought", adding: "The proposals do nothing but unleash further Islamophobia in British society."

Criminalization of thought, huh?

Did thoughts kill 40+ on the London subways?

Deportation isn't the answer. A long incarceration in one of England's more primative prisons, surrounded by IRA thugs, just might be.

posted by Ace at 11:04 PM

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