New laws intended to prevent radical foreign groups using Britain as a base for promoting violent campaigns in their home countries came into force Monday, said reports.
The new legislation replaces the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1973 which focused almost entirely on the paramilitary threat from Northern Ireland, said AFP.
Under the new law other groups can now be added to a list of banned organizations, and radical Muslim groups are likely to be early targets, said the agency.
Ministers have not said which organizations will be banned, but the interior ministry is said to be drafting a list.
According to AFP, this is likely to include Sri Lankan's rebel Tamil Tigers, the Kurdistan Workers' Party and Muslim groups Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hizbollah.
Once an organization is included on the banned list, it becomes illegal to be a member of the group, support it financially, display its emblems or share a platform with a member of the group at a meeting, said the BBC.online.
The legislation was enacted partly in response to pressure from some foreign governments complaining that Britain is a soft touch for radical groups plotting violent action against them.
Muslim movements based in Britain have admitted that they raise cash for affiliated groups waging paramilitary wars in places like Kashmir and Chechnya, said the news service.
In addition, hundreds of British Muslim men are known to travel each year to training camps, including one in Yemen, where they are taught how to conduct guerrilla warfare.
Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, British-based leader of the radical Islamic group Al Muhajiroun, was quoted by the BBC as saying that the law was "a threat to Muslims."
"We abide by Islamic law and we condemn terrorism, but we have to support the freedom fighters who are involved in wars with the occupiers of Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir," he said.
Muhammad said hundreds of British Muslims had trained in military camps abroad and had moved on to areas of conflict.
One such person is Omar Brooks, a young man from north London, said the news service.
"I've received military training in the Indian sub-continent and my role now is to face the enemies of Islam," he said.
"This new law means nothing, we have to abide by the teachings of Islam. We're being oppressed and persecuted in many countries, we have to defend our people."
Interior minister Jack Straw denied, according to AFP, that the legislation discriminated against Muslims.
It had been broadened "away from just Irish terrorism to any other kind of terrorism because frankly there are other types of terrorists these days and it is very important that we should have similar kinds of powers to those of other countries," he said – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
