Vexed pubgoers around the UK have rallied around a landlord who is being sued by a convicted terrorist over an “offensive” sign.
Khalid Baqa, 60, who has spent four years in prison for creating Jihadi propaganda, said that the “depiction of a bearded Arab/Turk” on the boozer’s sign “incites violence”.
He is now suing The Saracen’s Head Inn in Amersham, Buckinghamshire for almost £2,000, stating that the figure on the sign – which depicts a brown-skinned man of Arab or Turkish descent – is racist.
If successful, the 60-year-old plans to take on 30 other pubs with the same name.
Pubgoers around the UK have rallied around a landlord who is being sued by a convicted terrorist
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Saracen is a term used since at least the 5th century to refer to Arabs, and later linked to Muslims. The pub name Saracen’s Head is said to be linked to the Crusades.
It is one of the most popular names for a pub in the UK, alongside The Red Lion and The Royal Oak.
Staff at pubs with the same name have sworn to fight back against the lawsuit, slamming Baqa’s plan as “awful”.
Caroline Machell-Ranson, who is head chef at the Saracens Head in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, told the Daily Mail: “This is just ridiculous and is crazy that he is offended by the name.
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Robbie Hayes, landlord of the Amersham The Saracen’s Head, branded the lawsuit as a ‘complete joke’
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“This pub has been here since the 16th century and everyone in the village knows about it, and there have never been any complaints.”
Another worker at the Hertfordshire pub said that Baqa’s demand for a name change is “madness”.
At another Saracens Head pub in Towcester, near Northampton, staff and pub goers slammed the lawsuit.
“There is so much these days that offends people and for no good reason that you become afraid to say anything. I’ve never heard anyone complain about the name and have lived here for 20 years. It’s a local pub and people like it,” said one local.
Meanwhile, others presumed Baqa was just trying to “try his luck” to get a payout, doubling down on the pub keeping its name.
If successful, the 60-year-old plans to take on 30 other pubs with the same namePA
Speaking to GB News, landlord Robbie Hayes called the move a “complete joke”, adding that the pub has been called The Saracen’s Head for 500 years.
Discussing the lawsuit, Hayes admitted that initially he believed it was “some kind of scam”, but was “shocked” to learn that it wasn’t.
Hayes explained: “At first it was just shock, really. I thought it might have been some kind of scam, but because it was from HM courts and tribunals, I quickly realised it wasn’t.
“And then upon reading into the story and his claim that he actually came here, which I dispute, there was then several lines of different ‘offences’ for the actual signage.”
When Baqa filed the claim to a county court, he said that the sign “instilled worry and fear in me since it was clearly xenophobic, racist and inciting violence to certain people”.
The 60-year-old told the publication that he has always been offended by names like the Amersham pubs, though has only just discovered ways to challenge them.
“I’ve stopped all the terrorism stuff now,” he added.
In 2018, Baqa was jailed for four years and eight months after admitting five counts of dissemination of Terrorist publications.