Anti-Gay Islamic Preacher Abu Usamah At-Thahabi 'To Speak At Faith Conference'

Anti-Gay Islamic Preacher 'Set For London Conference'

A campaign group has furiously responded to reports an Islamic preacher who demanded gays "be thrown off a mountain" is due to speak at a faith conference in north London this weekend.

Hope Not Hate has said one of the speakers attending the “Beloved to Allah” event at Edmonton Islamic Centre on Sunday is Abu Usamah at-Thahabi.

He has been caught referring to gay people as “perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered."

His extreme views were documented in a Channel 4 programme, during which he urged that gay people should be punished with death.

“Do you practice homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain,” Thahabi was recorded as saying in the Dispatches programme.

In February the cleric had his invitation to visit Reading University’s Muslim Society withdrawn because of fears of violent protests.

He has also mocked Western attitudes towards women and attacked Christians and Jews, instead calling for the creation of an Islamic state in Britain.

The cleric was apparently filmed saying: "Whoever changes his religion from al-Islam to anything else kill him in the Islamic state."

Hope Not Hate says other speakers at Sunday’s conference include Abdul Hakeem Quick and Murtazah Khan.

In an interview for Voice of Islam broadcast on New Zealand television in 2003, Quick told viewers that AIDS was caused by the “filthy practices” of homosexuals.

“They want to take us all down with them,” he said.

Quick has endorsed the death penalty for homosexuality.

Murtazah Khan has also advocated the idea of throwing gay people off mountains and stoning them to death.

Khan has previously claimed: “I’m not homophobic. I believe in a natural way of life. I’m repeating you what your Bible tells you.”

Hope Not Hate branded the talk "unacceptable."

"We will be writing to the Centre to outline our concerns about these rabidly anti-gay views and to ask them if such individuals are 'right' to be speaking in their building," campaign co-ordinator Nick Lowles said.

"We believe it is important to be consistent in our opposition to hate speech. Just as we would speak out against right-wing homophobes, so too must we voice our opposition to those in any community or faith who vocalise violence and even death against others."

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