UK plans to deport ‘radical’ Muslims: Newspaper report
LONDON, Aug 28: Britain was preparing to round up a clutch of radicals for deportation as its crackdown on ‘unacceptable behaviour’ kicks in, newspapers said on Sunday.
Britain’s interior minister announced on Wednesday his intention to bar or throw out foreigners who ‘foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence’, in response to the London terror bombings which killed 56 people last month.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke unveiled a string of “unacceptable behaviours” and said he would use his powers to deport and exclude foreigners engaging in any of the numerous activities listed.
The Sunday Times said the internal security service MI5 had drawn up a list of 50 “preachers of hate” who face expulsion under the new rules.
The weekly said MI5 had passed on to the government its list of extremists considered to pose a threat.
The Sunday Express said Home Office officials were finalising deportation orders over the weekend on those not considered conducive to the public good.
“Officials are literally going through a whole bunch of names and seeing what their status is and whether we can get shot of them,” a senior Home Office source told the newspaper.
“Immigration officers and police officers will turn up at their doors and these people will be taken away and detained pending removal. When or if they can be deported depends on where they are from.
“These will be the undesirables or ‘non-conducives’”.
The Sunday Times understood the list to include London-based Saudi dissidents Mohammad al-Masari and Saad al-Faqih, plus Egyptian dissident Yasser al-Siri.
Masari hastily shut down parts of his controversial jihadi website Saturday, blaming the clampdown for the closure.
His Internet site featured videos of beheadings and suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq.
Faqih runs the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia and his website could warrant his expulsion from Britain according to some British press reports.—AFP
