« Sweden: Womens' Flight From Forced Marriages Ends In Islamist Terror Camp |
| UK: Fatwa Against George Galloway »
January 20, 2006
Pakistan: Hizb ut-Tahrir, Islamist Group, Challenges Ban
Hizb ut-Tahrir the international Islamic group which aims to set up a Caliphate or Khilafat, a trans-national Islamic state, has appeared in court in Lahore, Pakistan, to challenge a ban imposed upon it by the Pakistan government.
The news, reported by TMC Net and also on Hizb ut-Tahrir's British website, is that the HuT spokesman, Naveed Butt, is challenging the ban at the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench.
The initial hearing took place on 17 January, after which the divisional bench of Justice Naseem Sikandar and Justice Abdul Shakoor Piracha issued notices to various official bodies, to respond within three weeks.
The Federal government, Ministry of Law, Human Rights and Parliamentary Affairs and provincial Police in Punjab were sent the notices.
Butt's petition stated that since the Khilifat (Caliphate) is currently the biggest threat to America and "other colonialist countries", the Pakistan government's recent ban has been imposed merely to appease the United States of America.
The petition described the ban as "illegal" and "un-Islamic". It further peddled the notion that Hizb ut-Tahrir is a "completely peaceful organisation", working to reinstate Islamic life by restoring the Caliphate, "through peaceful political and intellectual struggle."
Jizb ut-Tahrir were represented in court by Muhammad Akram Chaudry, a former vice president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and Umer Hayat Sindhu, ex-vice president of the Lahore Bar Association.
We discussed Hizb ut-Tahrir's role in Tajikistan and neighbouring countries last week, where it is outlawed.
Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain are currently under threat of a ban. The proposed ban features in a clause within the government's anti-terror bill currently being debated in parliament's Upper House.
The last Caliphate, that of the Ottomans, was dismantled in 1924 by Turkey's Kemal Ataturk. The last Caliph, Abdulmecid Efendi, was unseated in March of that year. Some groups other than Hizb ut-Tahrir also aim to establish the Caliphate, such Metin Kaplan's groups Hilafet Devleti and Kalifatstaat in Germany.
The exact date of the Pakistan government's ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir is unknown. The group were publicly demonstrating against President Musharraf's Kashmiri policies, in Lahore in mid-December.
Two massive pdf documents from the Nixon foundation are available here. The first, entitled The Challenge of Hizb ut-Tahrir is 145 pages long, written Sept 2004. The second is a monograph entitled Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency is from December 2004, and is 144 pages long.
A more current discussion of the role of the Caliphate is made by Karl Vick in the Washington Post from last Saturday. The informative article makes mention mainly of Hizb ut-Tahrir, but also features Metin Kaplan, the "Caliph of Colgne", who is currently in prison in Turkey.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at January 20, 2006 11:37 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)