---

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. The answer is that there are any number. As soon as I name one of those organisations, it will rename itself. As soon as it is proscribed, it will spring up under another guise. As I said, that is not a criticism of the Government; it is a merely question about how they intend to deal with it. Hezbollah is much in the news at present. Will the Government explain why the external security organisation of Hezbollah is proscribed, whereas Hezbollah’s political arm and its guerrilla forces in south Lebanon are not proscribed? I shall quote from the Minister for the Middle East, although his words make the situation no clearer. He stated in March 2006:"““We are not aware of any involvement by Hizballah in terrorist activity in southern Lebanon. However, we remain very concerned by Hizballah’s support for terrorist activity within the Occupied Territories.””—[Official Report, 22 March 2006; Vol. 444, c. 422W.]" Can the Minister please explain why we deal with one half of the organisation in one way, and the other half in another way? Why is Abu Hamza’s old group, the Supporters of Sharia, not proscribed? What is the Government’s view on them? From their chat rooms, it is clear that they are a thinly disguised front for al-Qaeda in the United Kingdom. What are the Government’s views on Tablighi Jama’at? That organisation has plans to build a £100 million mosque in east London that will apparently accommodate 10,000 worshippers. French intelligence is deeply worried by that organisation, claiming that 80 per cent. of Islamist fundamentalists in France come from TJ and calling it the ““antechamber of fundamentalism””. How will we cope with that? Do the Government propose to allow the group’s recruiting methods to continue? Are we to give succour to it? Again, I simply require information from the Government. What about the Student Islamic Movement of India inside the United Kingdom? We have already touched on that. What are the Government’s views on the comments of Lord Carlile about the de-proscription of Mujaheddin-e-Khalq? I return to the point that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made about Hizb ut-Tahrir, or HUT for short. A few days ago the Home Secretary told us how pleased and delighted he was with the way that Project CONTEST was developing. That is the Government’s anti-terrorist strategy, which revolves around four streams of thought—four streams of action. Will the Government explain how HUT fits into both the ““protect”” and the ““prepare”” streams of thought of project CONTEST? I remind the House that the Prime Minister’s delivery unit said of Project CONTEST that activity in the project was not connected or coherent, it asked who was in charge, and it said that Project CONTEST measures meeting and reports, not real world impact. The Home Secretary denied all that. HUT is banned from many Arab countries, the former Soviet Union and Germany, yet London appears to be its headquarters. Its UK branch was founded by Omar Bakri Muhammad, who founded al-Muhajiroun, and it talks endlessly about anti-Muslim integration. On 5 August 2005, the Prime Minister said that HUT would be proscribed. Why has it not been? If we have Project CONTEST, a strategy for counter-terrorism, which the Home Secretary tells us is in good shape—although the Prime Minister’s delivery unit says it is not fit for purpose—can the Minister please explain to me why the Prime Minister’s words have not been honoured?