BEIRUT, 20 August 2005 — Outspoken Muslim cleric Omar Bakri said yesterday Britain’s crackdown following last month’s London bombings was forcing Muslims to choose between selling out their religion and leaving the country. Speaking to Reuters in Beirut, Bakri shrugged off a British decision to bar him from the United Kingdom, where he has lived for 20 years, saying he had no intention of returning to a country where Muslims were increasingly treated like terrorists.
“When the London attacks happened, they had no one to blame, so they threw it at me... The accusations kept coming even while I was asleep, so I came here,” the bearded Lebanese cleric said.
“I will not stop myself from speaking the truth, neither will I sell my religion and become a collaborator of the British government like the Muslim Council of Britain,” he said referring to the mainstream group that welcomed the ban.
“Britain is annoyed I left before it could deport me.” Bakri left London for Beirut two weeks ago amid a tabloid media campaign to oust him after four British Muslims killed themselves and 52 others on London’s transport system on July 7.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to silence Muslim preachers who glorify violence after the attacks. Britain last week barred 46-year-old Bakri, who supports attacks on British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and suicide bombings against Israelis, from returning.
It detained 10 people this month, including Abu Qatada, a Jordanian accused of Al-Qaeda links, and vowed to deport them. “The British government has now begun to attack so-called moderates and accuse them ... of links to terrorist organizations... I expect them to strike the moderates a hard blow, but in the end it is their country and he who wants to live among them, according to their unjust laws, can,” Bakri said.
Lebanon detained Bakri days after he arrived but freed him after 24 hours after investigators found he had broken no law. Bakri said he had no links to any Islamist groups in Lebanon and would stay away from politics and enjoy the quiet life. So far, he has been unable to do so.
Reuters was only able to interview Bakri by phone because he was hiding from tabloid reporters, lying in wait outside his mother’s flat in Beirut and the family’s mountain home. Bakri says his wife and seven children carry British passports and remain in London, but will join him once the media frenzy has calmed and he is able to set up home there.
“The London attacks, to be honest, did an injustice to everyone, to Muslims, to Arabs and to me,” he said. “Whoever did the London attacks harmed us. I don’t think they are Muslims.” Bakri hails from a wealthy Syrian family but grew up in Lebanon before leaving during the 1975-1990 civil war to work in Saudi Arabia. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1986.
