Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

Search

Search

Please click this link to help me keep The Angry Atheist active with an donation.

1. 

   […] last time I had had occasion to write about Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, above, was three years ago…

2. 

   Whatever is presented on the BBC, and I must admit I do not watch the TV, the fact is that…

3. 

   “The curriculum had already drawn tensions among the county’s religious parents, with some worrying about appropriateness and arguing the material…

4. 

   As someone who produced dozens of nativity plays as a teacher and a Sunday School leader, that title ‘A Gay…

5. 

   The defence of a Christian view never seems to be settled by debate: exchange of facts, reference to historical events.…

IN 2014, London-based Anjem Choudary, above, claimed in a Fox News interview that he thought those found guilty of “sodomy” should be stoned to death under Islamic law, which he said should be implemented worldwide.

He also said women who commit adultery should be executed by stoning.

And he predicted that “Sharia (Islamic law) will one day be law in the UK!”

Later Choudary, 57, was was jailed for five years for for inviting support for ISIS, but did not serve his full sentence. Instead he was released in October 2018.

But he was later to face a fresh trial after a transnational investigation into his lectures was concluded, and today the man who boasted of being an “extremist” and a “fanatic” was found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of directing a proscribed terrorist organisation, al-Muhajiroun, and faces life in prison.

Shorty before his first conviction, Talk Radio Europe trailed an upcoming interview with Choudary, describing him as a “respected British Muslim leader.” I immediately called the station to lodge a formal complaint about that description, pointing out that he was notorious for his hate preaching.

This did nothing to deter Talk Radio from putting him on air, but I was briefly given the opportunity to challenge his views. He hummed and hawed regarding his homophobia, but when I began quoting some of his statements, one of which was published by Pink News in 2009, I was cut short by a hostile interviewer and thrown off the programme.

Pink News quoted Choudary as saying:

If a man likes another man, it can happen, but if you go on to fulfil your desire, if it is proved, then there is a punishment to follow. You don’t stone to death unless there are four eyewitnesses. It is a very stringent procedure.

He also called for all British women to be forced to wear burkhas, saying:

Every woman, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, would have to wear a traditional burkha and cover everything apart from her face and hands in public.

Choudary, who will be sentenced along with one of his supporters, Khaled Hussein, on July 30, may have been silenced once and for all, but there are many other Islamists who share his views and will continue openly expressing them.

Please help me keep The Angry Atheist going with a donation.