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British Home Secretary Announces Ban Against ‘Antisemitic’ Hizb ut-Tahrir Organization

Supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir at a pro-Hamas rally in London. Photo: Reuters/Martin Pope

Britain’s interior minister on Monday announced a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir, a militant Islamist organization that has long been in the sights of the UK authorities for its violently antisemitic rhetoric and enthusiastic support of terrorist groups including Hamas.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir is an antisemitic organization that actively promotes and encourages terrorism, including praising and celebrating the appalling Oct. 7 attacks [by Hamas terrorists in Israel],” British Home Secretary James Cleverly told parliament on Monday.

“Proscribing this terrorist group will ensure that anyone who belongs to and invites support for them will face consequences. It will curb Hizb ut-Tahrir’s ability to operate as it currently does,” Cleverly said.

The banning order will come into force on Friday unless MPs decide to vote it down. Under its terms, certain offenses are punishable with up to 14 years in prison, while the group’s property and assets face seizure now that it is classified as a “terrorist” organization.

The impetus for the ban was a pro-Hamas rally which Hizb ut-Tahrir staged in London on Oct. 21, as thousands of protestors descended on the British capital to demonstrate their opposition to Israel. Antisemitic slogans and calls for jihad were on display, leading Cleverly’s predecessor as Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, to order a review of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s activities.

Previous British governments — including the administrations of former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron — had investigated the possibility of banning Hizb ut-Tahrir but were told by government lawyers that the group had not violated any anti-terrorism legislation.

Hizb ut-Tahrir first emerged in Jordanian-occupied Jerusalem in 1952, formed by a Palestinian Muslim cleric, Muhammad Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani. Its ideology is based on an uncompromising struggle between Muslims and non-believers that places the duty of jihad — holy war — at its center and demands the submission of all non-believers to Islam.

The group’s focus on what it calls the “near enemy” — the current rulers of Arab and Islamic countries who are deemed to be corrupt — has led to it being banned in most Arab countries as well as Indonesia, the state with the world’s biggest Muslim population.

Active in more than 50 countries, Hizb ut-Tahrir launched a chapter in the UK in the early 1980s. Its current leader is Wahid Asif Shaida, who also goes by the name Abdul Wahid, a family doctor with a practice in north London.

After Shaida warmly praised Hamas during a television interview in December, the health authority where his practice is based expressed concern over his “distressing comments,” adding that it was recommending an investigation of him by the National Health Service (NHS).

In that interview, Shaida described Hamas as a “resistance organization,” praising the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom — in which more than 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were murdered and more than 200 kidnapped amid atrocities that included rape and mutilation — as “a very welcome punch on the nose of the enemy.”

The post British Home Secretary Announces Ban Against ‘Antisemitic’ Hizb ut-Tahrir Organization first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.

The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.

The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.

Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.

Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.

The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”

“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.

Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”

The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.

The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week

Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot

i24 NewsPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.

The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes

Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

i24 NewsThe Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of ​​operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”

The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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