In early January, an insidious international radical Islamist movement outlawed in at least a dozen countries was forced to cancel its conference in Canada on how to establish a global Islamic caliphate by toppling governments. It was the second year in a row that organizers shut the event down.
While it is a welcome development, it’s not enough. The Trudeau government must follow in the footsteps of Germany and the United Kingdom and ban the group behind the event, Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabic for “Party of Liberation”).
The organizers’ decision to cancel the conference, named “The Khilafah: Eliminating the obstacles that are delaying its return,” came after concerns were expressed earlier this month about the risk it poses to public safety and social cohesion. Public Safety Minister David McGuinty confirmed on Jan. 13 that his department was assessing whether the group should be listed as an official terrorist entity in Canada.
The khilafah (Arabic for “caliphate”) is a political-religious state dating back to the seventh century when much of the Middle East was governed by an elected caliph and subjected to Islamic law. Hizb ut-Tahrir aspires to recreate a similar transnational empire that once again covers the Mideast, as well as North Africa and vast swathes of Central and South Asia.
While it claims to reject violence, Hizb ut-Tahrir has celebrated attacks on U.S. forces, endorsed suicide bombings, and views jihad as a necessary tool to convey “Islam as a message to the world.”
Referred to as a “conveyor belt” for terrorism and a “breeding ground” for al-Qaida recruitment, Hizb ut-Tahrir has a reputation for moulding future terrorists with its ideology and agitprop. The infamous Islamic State militant Mohammed “Jihadi John” Emwazi was said to have attended the group’s events while studying in Britain. The mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, were also linked to the group, according to intelligence sources cited by the New Statesman.
When designating it as a terrorist entity last year, the British government noted that Hizb ut-Tahrir “is an antisemitic organization that actively promotes and encourages terrorism, including praising and celebrating the appalling 7 October attacks.”
Headquartered in Lebanon, Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in 1953 by Palestinian jurist Sheikh Taqiuddin al-Nabhani after he and his fellow Muslim Brotherhood extremists felt that the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology was not radical enough. With millions of followers worldwide, the group is active in over 40 countries and was once one of Europe’s most powerful and fastest-growing Islamist organizations. Prior to its U.K. ban, the group used London as its regional headquarters to exploit the relative freedoms offered in Europe to supervise activities in Muslim nations where it faced more scrutiny.
Hizb ut-Tahrir’s global caliphate aspirations are somewhat the same as those of the Islamic State, better known as ISIS. Both groups are part of Islam’s revolutionary Salafi movement, however, their approaches are unique.
While ISIS uses violence and follows an ideology that justifies its brutality, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s aims to unify the Ummah (Arabic for “global Muslim community”) by accentuating the corrupt and unfair nature of Western systems and the perceived injustices suffered by Muslims worldwide.
Contrary to ISIS’s savage methods for achieving world domination, Hizb ut-Tahrir deploys a three-step clandestine social engineering approach. It first creates small cells to indoctrinate influential individuals, then spreads Islamic teachings to larger social groups to accomplish more widespread ideological unity and, finally, takes revolutionary action by deposing the government.
Members of the group have previously been involved in multiple coup attempts across the Muslim world. In 2012, four army officers in Pakistan who plotted to overthrow the Pakistani government were convicted for having ties to Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
Hizb ut-Tahrir’s many bans and terrorist designations have not deterred the group from its dreams of global conquest. For instance, promotional materials for its now-cancelled conference in Canada included posters and videos in English, Urdu and Bengali that romanticized the glorious history of past caliphates. The group portrayed the West and its Middle Eastern allies as hateful “tyrants” who “actively work to oppress” Muslims. It also claimed that only a caliphate could liberate Palestine from the “Zionist entity.” The group has deleted all promotional materials following the event cancellation.
Promotional videos for the event featured military-aged men who were Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters and images that appeared to be from the war in Gaza. This outreach tactic should concern authorities as it suggests that the group could have been targeting disenchanted Canadian Muslims by manipulating their grievances around the Middle Eastern conflict to brainwash and recruit them as ideological foot soldiers to their cause. The group was once linked to Hamas and has engaged in indoctrinating Palestinian students.
At a time when Canada is witnessing worrying levels of Islamist extremism, youth radicalization and a terrorist threat that “has rarely been higher” according to one Ottawa intelligence firm, groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir only exacerbate the threat and should therefore not be allowed to operate.
Moreover, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s pursuit of restoring an Islamic caliphate by overthrowing governments amounts to foreign interference and sedition. The group considers Canadian soldiers to be war criminals. Its actions threaten the stability and security of Canada’s key allies, such as Saudi Arabia, India, Israel, Jordan and Morocco. Hence, the federal government should bar the group from operating in Canada and using Canadian resources.
Hizb ut-Tahrir’s sordid ideology, beliefs, goals and track record as an incubator of violent extremism warrant listing it as a terrorist entity under Canada’s Criminal Code. The group has largely succeeded in keeping its hateful and disruptive activities under wraps, thanks to the attention-seeking exploits of its more vicious fundamentalist peers like ISIS and al-Qaida. Nonetheless, it poses a clear and present danger to Canada and its allies. Anything less than a ban would be inadequate.
National Post
Joe Adam George is a national security analyst with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the Canada research lead on Islamist extremism with the Middle East Forum, a U.S. policy think-tank.