The recent prosecution of Muslim Ahmed Faraz for possessing inciteful materials including video footage of 81 beheadings, serves to illustrate the real ongoing threat from Islamists resident in the UK. Whilst service personnel die and are maimed in Afghanistan fighting a war that has no objective other than to save face for the governments involved, thousands of Muslim British passport holders plot to bring about their fantasy of establishing a Shariah-based state here in the UK. As another report recently revealed, the security services are aware of hundreds of such individuals who are willing to employ suicidal violence in support of their aims. We are lucky that to date they have been so successful in thwarting associated plots at an early stage.
As is evident from the BBC artist’s depiction of Faraz, he is what the Corporation would refer to as ‘devout’; viz, bushy-bearded and dressed in traditional Pakistani garb. The BBC, along with many other media outlets, would probably not set much store upon the fact that Faraz not only ran an Islamic bookshop and publishing outfit named Maktabah, but was also an Islamic Studies graduate of Birmingham University. Evidently, it would not wish to give the ‘misguided’ and ‘distasteful’ impression that Faraz’s penchant for collecting and selling DVD’s of individuals suffering the horrific Islamic ‘punishment’ of decapitation as well as Islamic literature advocating this and other forms of barbarism had anything to do with his confessional affiliation. Heavens no! How could anybody suggest such a link? The BBC would perhaps argue that such a claim would be about as valid as stating that such behaviour was characteristic of independent Birmingham booksellers.
Found amongst the DVDs was footage of Ken Bigley, the unfortunate Liverpudlian who was captured and beheaded in Baghdad in 2004. Faraz is facing charges on thirty counts of possessing material that was intended to ‘radicalise Muslims around the world’. Mohammed Sadique Khan, ringleader of the 7/7 bombers, is named as one of Faraz’s customers.
Unfortunately, it is quite clear that there is an appetite for this sort of material in Britain, for otherwise Faraz’s shop would not have remained a viable financial proposition for as long as it did. This would seem to suggest that this type of ‘extremist’ publication and video material possesses a far larger wider reach than the few thousand Islamists identified as willing to employ violence to achieve their ends.
A just sentence for Faraz would be for him to be stripped of his assets and British citizenship and returned to his familial land or origin, thereby enabling him to ‘live the dream’ of being a resident of a state governed by Shariah. Alas, such an option is not currently possible.
UPDATE
On 13 December, the Birmingham Mail reports that Faraz was found 'guilty of seven counts of dissemination of terrorist publications and four counts of possession of information, likely to be of use to a person committing or preparing for an act of terrorism.'
UPDATE
On 13 December, the Birmingham Mail reports that Faraz was found 'guilty of seven counts of dissemination of terrorist publications and four counts of possession of information, likely to be of use to a person committing or preparing for an act of terrorism.'
