Muslims Against Crusades member Emdadur Choudhury has been fined £50 under the Public Order Act for his part in a protest on Remembrance Day.
Muslims Against Crusades seem to be becoming, at least in media terms, the Westboro Baptist Church of Britain: a fringe group of religious fanatics whose sole purpose seems to be to wind-up right-thinking people and condemn people like Index and the ACLU to defending their rights to be annoying/idiotic.
Of course, this is only half the story. Anjem Choudhary et al, in their various guises, al-Muhajiroun, the Saved Sect, Islam4UK… are not merely a fundamentalist freakshow. They are part of a movement which advocates terror in the name of the defeat of democracy and free expression. Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, the suicide bombers who killed three people and wounded 50 at Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv in 2003, for example, are known to have at very least attended al-Muhajiroun lectures (though any closer link was denied by the organisation).
But Emdadur Choudhury has not been convicted because of his organisation’s links to the global jihadist movement. He has been convicted for burning plastic poppies. This much is clear from the judgment and the acquittal of Choudhury’s fellow protestor, Muhammad Razul Haque. Haque was not convicted, mainly it seems, because he was not filmed with a lighter in hand.
Now, lots of other people were shouting lots of things that day. During the normal remembrance two-minute silence, the MAC protesters had shouted “British Soldiers Burn in Hell” and other charming, catchy slogans. But only Choudhury has been fined. Because it seems only Choudhury set light to the poppies.
Chief Magistrate Howard Riddle has here, singled out the poppy as fetish. While his judgment suggests a respect for free expression, and even the right to shout “British soldiers burn in hell” during a two-minute silence, it draws the line at the desecration of the symbol of this great nation at war. As the narrative of the war in Afghanistan drifts from swift liberation to long-haul, with no end in sight, criticism of the army (our brave boys, to be precise) has become taboo.
It does not add up that a country that claims to be at war with the medieval censors of the Taliban should itself drift into worshipping symbols — religious, secular or martial.
