Islamophobia Watch

"A radical Islamic group drew 1,000 delegates to a London conference as it debated how to fend off Prime Minister Tony Blair's plans to ban it in Britain. Hizb ut-Tahrir leaders also used the forum to react angrily to new claims that the organisation – already barred from operating in universities – is engaged in a secret campaign to recruit students to its cause."

Evening Standard, 5 September 2005

As I understand it, the National Union of Students has a policy of banning Hizb – dating from, and prompted by, the organisation's activities back in the early 1990s when Omar Bakri was still a member – but has no authority to impose this on individual student unions, still less on campuses across the UK. Indeed, Middlesex University students' union has a policy of supporting Hizb's right to organise. See
here

On the other hand, the Standard's piece is considerably more balanced than the witch-hunting lead article in Sunday's Independent. It's an indication of the disorientation caused by Islamophobia that on issues such as this the liberal media – which in the past could usually be relied upon to oppose racism and attacks on democratic rights – is no better and in some cases even worse than the right-wing press.

For Hizb's own report of their conference, see here