Weekly Worker 608 Thursday January 19 2006 Subscribe to the Weekly Worker

Defend free speech

Abu Hamza and Nick Griffin have more in common than they would like to admit: both are being prosecuted for their views and speeches - rather than their actions. Communists must take a firm stand against the chipping away of our civil liberties, because left critics of the government might be next in line, says Tina Becker

The current trial of ultra-islamist cleric Abu Hamza is the latest, rather desperate attempt of the government to find a stick to beat him out of the country with. Hamza’s well-publicised religious preachings have become a constant embarrassment - not least because newspapers like the Daily Mail and Evening Standard have been pursuing long-running campaigns against “Captain Hook”, “the hate preacher”.

The United States (or “United Snakes”, as he calls it) is still trying to have Hamza extradited, as is the government of his native Yemen, where he is alleged to have been involved in the kidnapping of 16 tourists in 1998. The British police arrested him over this and questioned him for a number of days, but had to release him without charge. In February 2003, he was banned from preaching in Finsbury mosque by the charity commission, but continued to speak from the street outside. In 2004, then home secretary David Blunkett tried to strip him of his British citizenship so that he could be deported more easily. Hamza has appealed against the removal of his passport to the European Court of Human Rights. So all of the above have so far come to nothing.

Now he is facing 15 charges: nine for soliciting “others at public meetings to murder Jews and other non-muslims”. Four charges claim he used “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with the intention of stirring up racial hatred”. Another charge alleges possession of video and audio recordings, which he “intended to distribute to stir up racial hatred”. And a charge under section 58 of the Terrorism Act accuses him of possessing the Encyclopaedia of Afghani jihad, which contained information “of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

Weak evidence

What then do we learn from the evidence presented, which has been splashed over all the front pages?

First, don’t book Hamza for a dinner speech. His talks are rambling and full of religious tedium; his English often incomprehensible. You might even pity the police investigators who spent months listening to this garbage (the vast majority of the 2,700 audio tapes and 570 video cassettes were incidentally found in Hamza’s home and in a raid at the mosque in 2003).

Secondly, he clearly doesn’t like Jews very much. “Why they [the “dogs of the west”] act like sugar daddy for Israel? Because they love the Israelis? No way! Because they hate them very much, but the Israelis know how to deal with them. They got a file for each one of these politicians, how much homosexual you are, how many money he has taken as bribe, whom his wife goes with, which child he has been abusing and they got all this against them. Jews know how to control people. This is how they know how to control our leaders.”

Together with a comment that Palestine “will be the biggest Jewish graveyard in the world”, this is enough to qualify as “racial hatred” and thereby constitutes a punishable offence, according to the prosecutor David Perry.

Thirdly, his speeches are of course full of repulsive references to jihad, martyrdom and the need to fight the kuffars (disbelievers). Apparently, “Allah loves” the “liquid of blood, whether you do it by a lamb or you do it by a Serb or you do it by a Jew or do it by enemy of Allah”.

In another sermon, Abu Hamza said that if suicide bombing was “the only way to hurt the enemies of islam ... then it is allowed”. His implied support for the September 11 2001 attacks is not so clear-cut, however. He is supposed to have stated that “many people will be happy, jumping up and down. America is a crazy superpower and what was done was done in self-defence”.

But on his own website he backs one of the many conspiracy theories: “The September 11 attack was designed by the Zionists to speed up the attack on Iraq and to control muslims before they got out of hand … Steel does not collapse. If you look at the sequence of events before the twin towers collapsed, it looks like a series of explosions” (www.shareeah.org/ba/articles/004.html).

His “terrorism manual” (which he claims he received as a gift) apparently explains how to make explosives, organise a terrorist unit and “suggests potential targets such as Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower”. Note that he is not supposed to have written the thing, neither is he being charged with using it to make bombs or tell his followers which targets to attack. It is the mere possession of this ‘encyclopaedia’ that is his offence (it hardly takes a genius to work out what kind of buildings might make good targets or how to make a bomb - this information is freely accessible on the internet, of course).

Considering the amount of evidence examined and considering how long the government has been trying to kick him out the country, the actual case presented is pretty weak. Most of the quotes are taken out of context, and, while they clearly show that Abu Hamza is a despicable and somewhat deranged human being, they fall well short of proving that “he urged followers to murder”, as Perry claims.

It is not alleged that he called on any of his followers to become martyrs and blow themselves up. He did not tell them to go to Palestine and kill Israelis. He did not even encourage them to go to Iraq and fight there and quite probably is correct in claiming that he “never encouraged anyone to hurt British people” (The Guardian January 14).

In fact, his warped speeches deal mostly with a period in the future, after a fight for religious rule (caliphate), in which he and his followers will emerge as the “victorious party”. Anybody trying to destroy the caliphate would then become “a target” and it would be justified to “bleed the enemy”.

No sympathy

Let us be clear: socialists have no sympathy at all with this religious nut. And the feeling is mutual: He seems to hate communists almost as much as he hates Jews and has labelled communism “a silly, stinky idea”. Sheikh Abu Hamza stands for pretty much the opposite of what socialists are fighting for. He runs ‘Supporters of Sharia’, a group of around 100 muslims who “fight against oppression”, so that “the whole mankind can enjoy the freedom, purity and justice of living under the laws of Allah (shari’ah)” (www.shareeah.org/about/index.html). Unless they are kuffars, that is. Or communists or democrats. He is not a fan of elections and condemns muslims who participate in them.

Despite all this, we must oppose the campaign to imprison this person. Because one day our working class forces will again become strong enough to pose a real threat. If we allow such blatantly political prosecutions to go unchallenged, we will become the victims of the same treatment.

Communists defend Abu Hamza’s right to free speech, because we do not want to give the government more powers to undermine our own freedom. Unless there is any real evidence that he has been involved in a terrorist attack or that he is directly responsible for acts of violence against Jews (or anyone else), he must be regarded as innocent. Not because we like the guy or what he says - quite the opposite. He should be exposed, severely criticised, marginalised and ridiculed.

But the current campaign of the government is actually achieving the opposite. Hamza does not need to blow himself up - he has become a martyr already. The vile campaign of the tabloid press and the attempts of the political establishment to simply get rid of him will have made him look rather attractive to a not insignificant number of alienated muslims. If he were to be imprisoned for his words (rather than his deeds), he would be handed a gift with which to recruit many more young and gullible followers.

British National Party

Nick Griffin (leader of the British National Party) and former BNP Leeds councillor Mark Collett are also charged with ‘inciting racial hatred’. Their comments, aired on the BBC programme Secret agent, are directed, of course, at people like Abu Hamza.

Griffin said Britain had become a “multiracial hell-hole”, that islam was a “wicked, vicious faith” and that the Koran says “you can take any woman you want as long as they’re not muslim. These 18, 19 and 25-year-old Asian muslims are seducing and raping white girls … right now.”

Another vile person, another anti-human message. Both cases, while seemingly opposites, are clearly part of the government’s campaign to chip away at the civil liberties that have been fought for and won from below over decades of struggle.

Communists have to be clear on this question. We oppose the prosecution of both men on the grounds of what they have said rather than because of anything they have done. Similarly, we  defend the right of the recently knighted Iqbal Sacranie (head of the Muslim Council of Britain) to say that homosexuality is “not acceptable” and should be viewed as a medical problem. Sacranie is now under investigation by the police for this comment on Radio Four’s Today.

Obviously, that does not mean that we keep quiet about our distaste for the vile messages of these people. We have no problem publicly condemning and criticising anybody for their anti-human views - be they neo-Nazi thugs, christian fundamentalists or muslim leaders.

There are, though, socialists who view this question rather differently. While Socialist Worker has been keen to mobilise protesters to demonstrate outside Leeds crown court, we have yet to see a critical remark in Socialist Worker about Abu Hamza or Sacranie. They seem to believe that, because they engage with a small number of muslims in Respect, they cannot possibly criticise any view voiced by muslims. Their support for the Religious Hatred Bill (see below) is also clearly designed to appeal to this disaffected section of society - and in the process they are supporting the government’s attempt to further undermine democratic rights.

This is not news, of course. The SWP’s Anti-Nazi League repeatedly called on the state to ban the BNP and other “fascist” organisations - and the comrades undoubtedly still believe that a ban would be some kind of victory. After all, they once said that Hitler’s Mein Kampf and David Irving’s books “should be banned from every public, college and school library” (Socialist Worker January 22 2000).

For the SWP, it seems, the aim (seeing Griffin in prison and the BNP banned) justifies the means (strengthening the state’s hand to deal with dissidents). However, the means employed in our struggle certainly matter. Different tactics can lead to very different outcomes. Lending support to the government in its attacks means giving our enemies more ammunition against us. It opens the door for the capitalist state to arbitrarily prosecute and charge all those opposed to its rule - including socialists and communists.

Religious hatred and SWP

Undoubtedly, the government had hoped to charge Griffin under religious hatred legislation, but the third reading of the Religious Hatred Bill in the House of Lords has been delayed after considerable opposition. As readers of the Weekly Worker know, the SWP has used its majority in Respect to defeat a number of motions/amendments presented by the CPGB and others that would have committed the organisation to campaign against the legislation. Respect MP George Galloway made one of his few appearances in parliament in order to vote for the bill.

An interesting discussion over this issue has been taking place in the pages of Socialist Worker over the last few weeks. Longstanding SWP member Ged Peck wrote a letter replying to the paper’s one-sided reporting of this issue at the Respect conference: “To suggest that those who oppose the religious hatred bill ‘line up with those who hate muslims’ is insulting … To imply that socialists who have spent decades fighting fascism are unwittingly on the same side as a bunch of Nazi scum is an outrageous slur” (December 3 2005). Two other comrades penned slightly less pointed letters in the same issue.

A week later, China Miéville tried to rescue the situation by legalistically pleading that conference “did not, though, commit Respect to supporting the bill itself”. China went on to voice his real concerns: “we should be sceptical not only of the government’s motives, but of the ways that this bill could be used. To be active cheerleaders for it would be dangerous” (December 10 2005).

Ger Francis replied, stating that “China Miéville is mistaken if he believes Respect does not support the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill … Respect delegates concluded that this bill will help the fight against racism and that is why anti-racists should support it” (Socialist Worker January 7). He is right - SWP comrades did indeed argue in favour of the bill.

All this underlines the fact that we are witnessing cracks opening up in the SWP. Voting for one unprincipled position after the other is obviously taking its toll.

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