Britain’s proscription of the Sunni Islamist political group – which puts it on par with al-Qaeda or ISIS – will come into force from January 19 if agreed by parliament, the Home Office said.
All you need to know about Hizb ut-Tahrir:
- Founded in 1953 and headquartered in Lebanon, Hizb ut-Tahrir operates in 32 countries including in Britain and other Western nations, with a long-term goal of establishing a caliphate ruled under Islamic law.
- It has been banned by Germany, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several Central Asian and Arab nations.
- Ata Bin Khalil Abu al-Rashtah, a Palestinian Islamic scholar, is the current global leader of the fundamentalist group.
- “Hizb ut-Tahrir is an antisemitic organisation that actively promotes and encourages terrorism, including praising and celebrating the appalling 7 October attacks,” home secretary
James Cleverly has said. - The organisation has a history of praising and celebrating attacks against Jewish people.
- The British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir was started in the early 1980s and led by a Palestinian.
Previous bids to ban failed
The British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir said that the effort to ban it was “a desperate measure to censor debate about the genocide in Palestine and to stop Islam’s just political alternative,” and that it would challenge the measure using all legal means.
Previous British governments proposed outlawing the group, but did not.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said in 2005, amid a crackdown on extremism following coordinated suicide bombings in London on July 7 that year, that he would ban it, as did PM David Cameron in 2010.
But a government watchdog on terrorism legislation and rights groups warned against such measures in 2011, arguing in part that Hizb ut-Tahrir is a “radical, but to date non-violent Islamist group”.
(With inputs from agencies)