Taking sides

Does Britain's new anti-terrorism offensive target militancy -- or Islam? Khaled Dawoud wonders if Britain is toeing the American line
A list seeking a ban on 21 mainly Islamic groups in Britain on charges of terrorist involvement has the Arab and Muslim community in Britain and abroad crying foul. Issued earlier this month by Britain's Home Secretary Jack Straw, the list names 15 Islamic groups, among them organisations like Lebanon's Hizbullah and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Jihad -- considered by many Arabs and Muslims to be legitimate resistance groups fighting Israel's occupation of Arab territories.
The inclusion of two Egyptian groups, Al-Jihad and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, however, has reportedly pleased Egyptian security officials, who hold Al-Gamaa responsible for most acts of terrorist violence between 1992 and 1997, including the Luxor massacre. One security official told Al-Ahram Weekly that this was "a long overdue step." He added that Egypt has repeatedly warned Britain and other European governments against allowing suspected militants to take advantage of lax security laws to raise money and plot attacks.
In the past, suspected extremists have been painted as victims of repression and human rights abuses in their home countries and have been given asylum in the United States and Britain. But the massacre of 58 foreign tourists, including six Britons, at Luxor in November 1997 and the twin bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 have changed the views in Washington and Europe. The United States now leads the drive against alleged Islamic terrorist groups, particularly those close to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan.
Yasser Serri, who runs the London-based Islamic Observation Centre (IOC), told the Weekly in a telephone interview that the British government's new move reflects "a racist approach" towards Islamic groups and pointed out that the list is an exact replica of the American list of so-called terrorist groups. Sentenced to death by an Egyptian military court in 1993 for his involvement in an assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Atef Sidki, Serri was quick to point out that no London-based Egyptian militants claimed to speak in the name of Al-Gamaa or Jihad. He argued that the British initiative targets Islamists, saying that the proof is in the list itself: none of the right-wing Israeli groups that openly call for the killing of Arabs are included. He added that some of the groups listed do not even exist in Britain, like the Palestinian Jihad.
Fuelling the ire of Britain's Arab and Islamic community, the government has threatened to arrest anyone known to be a member of one of banned groups. Serri noted that the definition of terrorism provided in the Terrorism Act is very broad and could apply to many people. But Gareth Bayley, press attaché at the British embassy in Cairo, denied that the list targets Islamists, claiming instead that the British government "did not look at these groups in a political sense, but on the basis of their actions."
According to Bayley, the Terrorism Act defines terrorism as "the use or threat of action designed to influence the [British] government or to intimidate the public, or a section of the public in order to advance a political, religious or ideological cause which either/or involves serious violence against a person, serious damage to property, endangering a person's life other than that of the person committing the action, creates a serious risk to the health and safety of the public or a section of the public, or designed to interfere with or seriously disrupt an electronic system."
Bayley said that the 21 groups were selected on the basis of four criteria: the threat they posed to British interests, the extent of the group's presence in the UK; the nature and scale of the group's activities and Britain's effort to support the international community in the fight against international terrorism. Most of the groups named on the list, Bayley conceded, fall under the fourth category, but he denied that the list aimed to please Israel or any of Britain's friendly governments in the Arab world. "It [the list] is not passed with the specific aim of appeasing any particular ally of Britain. It is designed to assist the courts and the police in combating terrorism more effectively," he said.
The list still awaits approval by the House of Lords and the House of Commons and Serri says that London-based Islamists will be intensifying their campaigns to exclude some of the groups from the ban, particularly those involved in the fight against Israeli occupation. Following are the names of the proscribed organisations: Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida; Egypt's Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and Al-Jihad; Algeria's Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Salafist Group for Call and Combat; Lebanon's Hizbullah; Ezzedine El-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas group; the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Abu Nidal group; Yemen's Islamic Army in Aden; Iran's Mujahideen Khalq; Kurdistan's Workers Party (PKK); Turkey's Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front; three Islamic groups in Kashmir: Harakat Mujahideen, Jaish Mohamed and Lashkar El-Tayyaba; two Indian extremist Sikh groups: the International Sikh Youth Federation and Babbar Khalsa; Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam; Spain's Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA); and the Greek 17 November Revolutionary Organisation.
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