The government decision to proscribe as “terrorist” the political group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, is an authoritarian and flagrantly Islamophobic act that seeks to stifle opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

By banning an organisation that the government itself has acknowledged is non-violent, British authorities are signalling their intent to continue with an established policy of using anti-terrorism laws to try to muzzle opposition voices and crush dissent.

Coming at at time when Britain is enabling and actively supporting Israeli war crimes in Palestine, this ban has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with silencing a vocal opponent of the apartheid Zionist state and its supporters.

The proscription sends the chilling message to other Muslim – and non-Muslim – groups in the UK that if they seek to disrupt the official narrative on UK foreign policy they also risk putting themselves in the firing line.

Since the turn of the millennium, Britain has unleashed an avalanche of anti-terrorism legislation, most of which is aimed at socially engineering its Muslim inhabitants to create a state-friendly, compliant brand of Islam.

More generally, Britain’s experience of anti-terror legislation has been one of mission creep where the threat of “Muslim extremism” is cynically whipped up by media and politicians to stoke public fears in order to justify the erosion of established rights and freedoms.

Lowering the threshold of what constitutes terrorism or criminal behaviour under the pretext of security, seeks to condition the wider public to accept the wearing down of our hard won civil liberties.[ENDS]

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