The Islamist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been jailed for seven years after he was found guilty of preaching murder as a religious duty.
But oddly the Government saw this as a vindication of their belief that new laws are needed.
Gordon Brown said the sentence showed there would be no tolerance for “preachers of hate”. But he added: “It shows why we need laws against the glorifying of terrorism and why we need to stop extremist Muslim clerics trying to enter the country.”
Now I’m not opposed in principle to the introduction of laws against the glorifying of terrorism but to use a case where someone was convicted under existing laws seems like political opportunism.
The terrorism bill failed not just because the opposition were just trying to defeat the government but because the clauses dealing with glorification of terrorism were ambiguous and badly constructed.
Tags: terrorism
