Embracing Islam gives Ken new election hope

Embracing Islam gives Ken new election hope

By Keith Dovkants

Evening Standard, 16 April 2008

Nearly half a million Muslim voters are being urged to support Ken Livingstone against Boris Johnson in the closing stages of the mayoral election. A year-long strategy to mobilise the Muslim vote for Ken moves into overdrive this week, accompanied by a campaign of vilification aimed at Boris.

It has been orchestrated by Islamic leaders who have been assiduously courted by Ken, an Evening Standard investigation reveals, and signals a new departure in tactics to harness an ethnic minority vote in a bid for power.

Behind the operation are supporters of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Sunni scholar welcomed to City Hall by Ken. Al-Qaradawi has dismayed Muslim moderates with his defence of suicide bombers, female circumcision and the persecution of homosexuals, although he has denounced terrorism for political goals.

The Islamic alliance for Ken was set up early last summer and is based in east London. It grew from Ken's links with community leaders and activists and his generous sponsorship of Muslim causes.

The London Development Agency, often referred to as "Ken's piggy bank", gave £700,000 to help set up the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel. The centre and the adjoining East London Mosque are the geographical heartland of the Muslim campaign to re-elect Ken. So far, it has involved one of the biggest mobilisations of an ethnic vote ever seen in London. It is bigger than the Muslim effort behind George Galloway when he captured Bethnal Green and Bow for his Respect party in 2005. Galloway has a role in the re-elect Ken operation as does an Islamic organisation that helped him back into the Commons, the Islamic Forum of Europe.

Muslims 4 Ken, as the group calls itself, is targeting a vote it believes could be as large as 450,000. One part of the operation was to ensure this potentially decisive voice was heard by persuading every eligible voter to register. The other phase, convincing them to vote for Ken, moves up a gear today, the last deadline for registration.

The last two weeks of the election campaign will see a sustained attack on Boris based on claims that he is anti-Islam. Ken's Muslim supporters have made much of the fact the British National Party urged its members to make him their second preference vote. Boris has rejected BNP support but Muslims 4 Ken argues that it proves he is the enemy.

The key figure in Muslims 4 Ken is Anas Altikriti, a 39-year-old lecturer who was brought to Britain from Iraq aged two when his father, a leading Islamist, was forced to flee after opposing Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath regime. Altikriti has been an active member of the anti-war movement and went to Iraq in 2006 to help secure the release of British Christian hostages including Norman Kember. He was the prime mover behind a letter to The Guardian in January in which 63 individuals and Muslim organisations asked London Muslims to vote for Ken.

Critics of Altikriti claim that while he espouses dialogue and non-violence, he may have wide contacts within extreme Islamic groups. One of the people who has worked closest with him on Muslims 4 Ken, Azzam Tamimi, is an enthusiastic supporter of Hamas.

Dr Tamimi heads the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London. His family comes from Hebron and he has campaigned his entire adult life against Israeli occupation in Palestine. In 2004 he was questioned by Tim Sebastian on the BBC Hardtalk programme about a post he made on an internet forum, saying: "For us Muslims martyrdom is not the end of things, but the beginning of the most wonderful of things."

Sebastian asked if he would be a suicide bomber. Tamimi replied: "I would do it. When? If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it. Why not?"

Dr Tamimi has been involved in trying to galvanise what the Muslims 4 Ken group sees as the youth vote, especially among teenagers voting for the first time.

The network of Islamic groups and personalities linked to Muslims 4 Ken is not confined to London. One is Salma Yaqoob, a close associate of George Galloway and a Birmingham city councillor for his Respect party. Ms Yaqoob, a tireless campaigner for the hijab, is on record describing the 7 July bombings in London as "reprisal events".

Muslims 4 Ken believes that out of a possible vote of close to half a million, up to 200,000 can be secured for Ken. For months its campaigners have canvassed door-to-door and targeted 60 key mosques among the 200 or so in London. Altikriti was at Redbridge mosque on Saturday where, as is his practice, he asked the imam if he could include an appeal to vote for Ken in his address. Permission was politely declined but at other mosques he has been able to make his pitch.

A sinister element of the campaign is the effort to portray Boris as a Muslim hater. Websites have been bombarded with selected quotes from his journalism. One, Islamophobia Watch, carries a long list of excerpts from his articles under the heading Back Boris Urges BNP.

Informed observers see Islamophobia Watch as a tool of Ken's political machine. It often carries articles lauding his efforts for minorities, especially Muslims. Headlines such as "Livingstone attacks French headscarf ban" and "Livingstone decries vilification of Islam" abound.

Documents obtained by the Evening Standard reveal the exceptional access given to Muslim leaders to the Mayor's office. Altikriti has held extensive talks with Ken and his aides, apparently in the interests of improving race relations and fostering multiculturalism. Insiders believe Ken has also been highly conscious of the electoral potential among London's Muslims.

One source said a two-pronged strategy was developed in 2003: one, to take a tough stance with the Board of Deputies of British Jews and challenge the Zionist lobby. The second was to work with and court hardline Islamic groups and individuals. The source said: "Ken did not have a relationship with them directly but through Anas Altikriti."

Altikriti is closely involved with the Muslim Association of Britain, widely described as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Islamist network in which Yusuf al-Qaradawi is viewed as a leading figure. It has provided a spiritual home for a number of extremists, including Ayman Al Zawahiri, the al Qaeda leader often described as Osama bin Laden's deputy.

Altikriti said his father had led the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq for 10 years but he denied he was involved with it. However, hewas instrumental in organising al-Qaradawi's visit to London to attend a meeting of the European Council of Fatwa and Research at City Hall.

Al-Qaradawi is a highly esteemed Islamic scholar, but his support for suicide bombers and his homophobia have offended many. He is held to be the unofficial leader of the Muslim Brotherhood by a number of informed authorities.

When Ken made a very public display of embracing him at City Hall – the images were widely distributed to Muslim websites and newspapers – there was disquiet, especially among Jews and gays. Al-Qaradawi is now banned from entering Britain after being refused a visa earlier this year. The decision was based on Article 41 of the UN charter which deals with threats to peace and security.

George Galloway, who is standing for the Greater London Assembly, supports Ken. He demonstrated the power of the Muslim vote in London when he captured the formerly safe Labour seat in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2006. Muslim community leaders campaigned vigorously on his behalf. One, Shiraj Haque, a wealthy restaurateur known as the Brick Lane Curry King, told me: "I got 7,000 votes for Galloway. I shall deliver more for Ken."

Galloway has acknowledged his debt to Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), which has a powerful presence at the East London Mosque. Ed Husain, who wrote revealingly about extremists at the East London Mosque, disclosed that after Galloway's election, he said at a celebration dinner: "I am indebted, more than I can say – more than it would be wise for me to say – to the IFE ... I believe they played the decisive role in this historic victory."

The IFE is believed to have close links with Jamaat-e-Islami, a hardline Islamic group based in Bangladesh. Jamaat has been accused of providing recruits to groups that espouse violence but it has always advocated the advance of Islam by peaceful means.

Ken appears to want the Muslims to help him with a historic victory of his own. The question many will ask is: what is he giving in return? Apart fromhighlevel access to Muslim organisations, Ken's office has also been a generous donor to Muslim causes, including the Islamexpo in 2005 and the annual Bangladeshi Mela festival. Ken also commissioned a report on anti-Islamic bias in the media and a long dossier defending al-Qaradawi, a document some observers say was seriously flawed.

A spokesman for Ken said: "The policy of the Greater London Authority is that all London's communities should be represented and supported by London government. Nearly 10 per cent of London's population are Muslim. Accordingly the Greater London Authority and the London Development Agency have supported a number of events and activities in relation to the Muslim community."

Altikriti was based in northern England but moved to London three years ago while keeping his family home in Leeds. He agreed to talk to me about the Muslims 4 Ken campaign, stressing that he wished to clarify two points: it was "absurd", he said, to suggest that he or organisations in which he was involved wanted to establish sharia law in Britain. And he said the campaign for Ken contained "absolutely no hidden agenda".

"We are fighting extremism in the Muslim community," he said. "Boris Johnson would be extremely bad news for Muslims in London. When the 7/7 bombings happened, Ken condemned them as criminal acts. Boris condemned Islam.

"What is at stake is extremely serious. There are fractures between East and West and – despite his faults – Ken has always been able to bridge the gap. People have come to feel they have a friend in Ken. They would be lost with Boris. The fact the far-Right is calling for its supporters to give him their second vote says it all."

As election day nears, he said, efforts are intensifying. "We are going door-to-door, talking to everyone we can. One of the most effective ways is to get mothers to badger husbands and their families to vote for Ken. It's a full-time job and people are very dedicated. We get help from the business community – printing for our leaflets is subsidised by print shops."

Altikriti said the polls have not yet taken into account the massive Muslim vote he hopes will turn out for Ken. It will, he said, be at least 180,000 and could well reach 200,000."

Can Muslims swing it for Ken? "Yes," he replied, "we definitely can."