Global Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) likes to claim that it is devoted to an “exclusively political method” which is non-violent. Even though HT would be happy to see the deaths of millions and its ideology and strategy has been well documented by my Spittoonite comrade Houriya (not least in the excellent, but somewhat prosaically titled, report Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology and Strategy (pdf) which she authored with her colleague Hannah Stuart) there are still many politicians, civil servants and the like who repeat the wrong-headed platitude that HT is non-violent.
They could not be less correct, as a Bangladeshi news site reports:
The Dhaka University’s vice chancellor received death threats on Sunday from banned Islamist outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir.
The organisation in two letters asked A A M S Arefin Siddique to reinstate central coordinator of the outfit and spokesman professor Mohiuddin Ahmed to his position in the university without delay.
He has also been asked to take steps for releasing arrested relatives of some of the convicts in the Bangabandhu murder case.
The university’s assistant registrar Munshi Shamsuddin told bdnews24.com the letters arrived between 1pm and 1:30pm on Sunday; one was posted on Nov 10 and the other on Nov 11.
One letter reads: “Don’t involve Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Mohiuddin in any trouble. And reinstate the three teachers sent on forced leave within three days. Or else, we will kill you and your family. No one can save you.”
The letter is undersigned as Abdul Hamid, president of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s committee of registrar building officials.
As the Spittoon reported, HT was banned in Bangladesh last month for reasons of national security. This seems to have been a good call, at least if HT’s apparent allies are anything to go by.
The letters claimed that Hizb ut Tahrir has 200 trained members.
The other letter under signed by the same asked for removal of all barriers regarding admission of madrasa students in the university. It also asked the vice-chancellor to get the government to release Mehnaz Rashid, Kamrul Haque Swapan and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami leader Mufti Abdul Hannan.
[...]
Mehnaz Rashid, daughter of death convict Abdur Rashid in the Bangabandhu murder case, and Swapan, brother of another fugitive death convict Shariful Haque Dalim, were arrested recently over alleged involvements in the bomb attack on Awami League MP Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh.HuJi Leader Mufti Hannan is standing trial for bombing prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s meeting on Aug 21, 2004.
Assuming this is correct, HT Bangladesh is making death-threats to try and force the release of terrorists implicated in bombings and murders. If this is HT’s idea of a non-violent “exclusively political method”, what they would mean by “violent” doesn’t bear thinking about.
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One can be certain that Dr Nasim (Patrick) Ghani (HT Britain’s senior member), who recently returned from a long stay in Bangladesh – recruiting for the Hizb, would be able to tell us the doctrinal differences between HT in UK and HT in Bangladesh.
What are the authorities doing about a British doctor, who is involved with setting up an organisation in Bangladesh, which advocates violence and uses death threats?
As I reported earlier this month, HT were implicated in a recent anti-terrorist operation conducted by the Ukrainian authorities in the Crimea, where a sizeable weapons cache was uncovered, together with HT literature.
Muslim Crimean Tartars were deported to Central Asia by Stalin, only returning in more recent years to their home on the Black Sea. Many still live in Uzbekistan and the other Central Asian former Soviet states. HT, of course, have extensive links to fellow Islamists and assorted jihadi in Central Asia.
This from Turkey also provides food for thought – especially given HT’s favourite strategy of infiltrating the military of Muslim-majority states to induce a coup d’etat:
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnewsswords=8fd5893941d69d0be3f378576261ae3e&tx_ttnewsany_of_the_words=hizb%20ut-tahrir&tx_ttnewstt_news=35349&tx_ttnewsbackPid=7&cHash=729855c301