'Muslims Against Crusades' To Be Banned From Midnight, Theresa May Announces

'Poppy-Burning' Muslim Protest Group To Be Banned In UK

Protest group Muslims Against Crusades will be banned from midnight on Thursday, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, has announced.

Theresa May said that Muslims Against Crusades was "simply another name for an organisation already proscribed under a number of names" including Al Ghurabaa, The Saved Sect, Al Muhajiroun and Islam4UK.

The group caused outrage by burning poppies on Remembrance Sunday last year. Emdadur Choudhury, was controversially fined only £50 for the offence, seen by many as tokenistic.

The 'Hell for Heroes' demonstration organised for this year was intended to disrupt a minute's silence for the war dead at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday and to mock Help for Heroes, the charity for injured soldiers.

The Muslim Council Of Britain was keen to emphasise that the actions of "a tiny, and utterly deplorable, extremist group" should not represent the attitude of British Muslims to Remembrance Day.

The Secretary General of the MCB, Farooq Murad, explained that "Muslims up and down the country will be honouring the contribution of both Muslim and non-Muslim alike to our great nation”.

This ban comes in the wake of a Conservative MP being threatened at his surgery with constituents in north London in October. Mike Freer MP was meeting constituents at a mosque when a dozen protesters forced their way into the mosque. Freer locked himself in a room for protection. He alleges that one of them referred to him as a "Jewish homosexual pig".

The attack on Freer had been organised on the Muslims Against Crusades website, which included a warning that the attack on him should serve as a "piercing reminder" to politicians that "their presence is no longer welcome in any Muslim area". This is believed to be a reference to the stabbing of Stephen Timms MP last year by a Muslim extremist.

The Home Office decision means anybody who supports the organisation will be committing a criminal offence.

Abu Osama, at the Muslims Against Crusades head office, confirmed that the 'Hell for Heroes' demonstration will not be going ahead and that their website will no longer be operational after today.

However, Muslims Against Crusades spokesman, Anjem Choudary, was still in defiant mood. He told Sky News that the British government is oppressing Muslims in war abroad and with censorship in UK.

The official website acknowledged that they have been dissolved, but left the parting shot:

"We will never rest until the flag of Islam flys [sic] high over Downing Street!"

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