Jacqui Smith rejects Ibrahim al - Musawi’s visa application

Friday, 13 March 2009 13:21

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has caved into pressure from the pro-Israel lobby to refuse Lebanese journalist, Ibrahim al-Musawi permission to enter the UK to deliver lectures at SOAS. Al-Musawi was due to take part in lecture series on Islam at the university at the end of this month.

The Home Secretary had previously signaled that Musawi’s visa application was under review and that the government was ‘still considering evidence’. This week’s front page of the Jewish Chronicle read 'Ministers to welcome voice of Hizbollah', and stated that Smith was ‘poised to allow’ Musawi into the UK. It would appear that the pro-Israel lobby has now been successful in pressuring government to refuse Musawi entry.

The paper claims that opposition to the visa application had been led by Hazel Blears, minister for communities and local government.

Blears’ stance will seem incredulous to those that have read her speech made at the LSE last month in which she announced the need to engage with those that held objectionable views but with whom engagement was necessary.

There are so many ironies to point out here:

Douglas Murray who threatened to seek an arrest warrant from magistrates to apprehend Musawi on arrival previously said, in his Pym Fortuyn address 2006, that ‘Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board...’

One wonders whether Murray is aware of the monstrous nature of his own hypocrisy or if he is only able to recognize hate speech that targets Jews and not Muslims? Particularly since he is himself guilty of making incendiary comments about Muslims.

The copious amount of news and comment that graced the pages of our newspapers horrified at the exclusion of Geert Wilders and the damage done to the respect for freedom of expression have been curiously silent on the issue of Musawi. Might one rightly conclude that free expression entails the right to make incendiary remarks about Muslims but not of other faith groups in Britain?

The most that has been said in newspapers on the matter has tended to focus on a question of parity – if the Government excluded one it is bound by its own rules to exclude the other. But since argument on the exclusion of Wilders focused on the merit of undermining the very principles of a liberal democratic society, why then on Musawi is there not equal consternation at the Government’s move on banning him?

As we previously argued, vacillations of this sort will do little to convince Muslims in the UK that freedom of expression is a ‘one size fits all’ ball game.

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