Friday, January 12, 2007

London's Olympic Mosque

The Spectator reports on the controversial plans to build a new 70,000 seater Sunni Mosque next door to the London Olympic Village. The decision to go ahead will be taken later this year but it looks as though it will go ahead.

The project has the backing of a group called Tabligh-i-Jamaat, a missionary Sunni sect. They claim to be 'non-violent' but a number of convicted terrorists have passed through its ranks, including John Walker Lindh and Richard Reid (the shoe bomber). The movement's European headquarters is in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, and was often visited by Mohammed Khan, the mastermind of the 7/7 bombings.

Abdul Khaliq, the Mosque director and Tabligh spokesperson said that

"We would like to think that the Olympic authority will use it as the Islamic quarter of the 2012 Games."

ie a separate Islamic zone.

Unsurprisingly, Mayor Ken Livingstone has enthusiastically endorsed the Mosque proposal, hoping to open the building himself. Labour MP, Mike O'Brien has also endorsed the project expressing the belief that

"radical Islam is acceptable, in contrast with extremist Islam"

I'm sure there is a difference.

Meanwhile the good citizens of London maintain their total silence on the subject, cowed by the PC authorities into going with the flow. Sharia Law just got a little closer in England.