Radical Islamic Clerics

Keep hearing about the British moving to control or censor these radical clerics, but will it really work?

An outspoken British-based Muslim cleric who left the country in the wake of a government pledge to crack down on radical Islamists said on Tuesday he had merely gone on holiday and planned to return.

Syrian-born Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, who has lived in Britain for 20 years, left for Lebanon on Saturday and associates said he would not come back.

Bakri said on Tuesday he had decided to take a short break from Britain because he feared the government was using clerics like him as an excuse to rush in new laws and "put pressure on the Muslim community."

This guy has just used the British move to control these clerics, in their incitation of violence, as a means to broadcast the action as oppression. Is that helpful? You'd think that such radical clerics would go quiet in public, but in private would continue their movement.

One wonders if the same thing could be done in the US. I'm not really sure. From what I've heard of the sermons, they could be construed as inciting violence, which is not protected speech in the US. But then, some very fine lines have been drawn regarding what is incitation to violence. I'm thinking that the freedom of religion and freedom of speech don't collide to heavily here. I find it unlikely that a court in the US would find inciting violence a reasonable part of any religion. Well, maybe in the 9th circuit, but not elsewhere.

This article explains some of the actions that Blair is looking to enact into law.

He would greatly expand grounds for deportation to include fostering hatred, advocating violence to further political or religious beliefs or justifying such violence. The plan creates a new crime of glorifying terrorism, refuses political asylum to anyone with links to terror groups and strips citizenship from naturalized citizens who participate in extremist movements.

It would expand police powers to hold terror suspects for three months without charges and would close a number of radical mosques. Treason charges - the most serious of offenses under British law, punishable by death until 1998 - also are being considered for three British-born Muslim leaders who have praised terrorists and said in public they would not inform the police if they knew a terror attack was planned.

There should be little controversy over the proposed powers to deport foreign extremist clerics who abuse Britain's tradition of free speech and political asylum to incite violence. It's wrong to argue, as some civil liberties lawyers have done, that Blair's plan erodes Britain's commitment to human rights. Promoting terror, by word or deed, is not a universal human right, even by the most tortured stretch of that concept. As for the rest of the plan, it will be tested in the courts. That's as it should be in a democratic society under threat.

I'm quite certain that many of these would never be allowed in the US. For good reason. Holding with out charge for 3 months is unreasonable for a citizen of the US. I also doubt that any non-citizen would be held for that long if arrested by the US civil authority in the US. I'm uncertain about the situation of a cleric not informing the authorities of a planned terror attack scenario. I don't know of any restrictions, as a Roman Catholic priest has with regards to the confessional, that is applicable to an Islamic cleric. Though I am certain that the ACLU would advocate against such action.

For the most part I believe that Moslems in this country are much better integrated with the rest of society. Hopefully that will help with some of the problems seen in Britain.