This was one that boasted of fundraising for Ayatollah Khamenei’s organisation. Ayatollah Khamenei is the world’s foremost terror financier – the supremo of Iran, a wanted human rights criminal in the Hague, the controller of Hizballah, implicated in the execution of a Lebanese head of state, the controller of the Iranian Gestapo (the “basij”), and the man who maintains the death contract on Salman Rushdie.
The Council say the decision not to sell the land cheaply to this mosque organisation was as a result of a Council meeting in December. But that is wrong. It was as a result of a very angry public meeting on 24th March 2011 where the Council didn’t cover themselves in glory.
I have never been at meeting so violent in tone. The mosque followers were flash-mobbing, half the room was shouting, and I had to have a police escort out at the end. Saying rude things about a wanted human rights criminal (Khamenei) can make you the most hated man in the room.
This was a fishy proposal from the start.
First, why not use the land for housing? Council Policy says the land should be used for “predominantly residential and commercial uses”:
“The town is clearly facing severe problems in terms of meeting the housing needs of local people…Particular problems facing the town include…
high levels of demand for housing, particularly social housing,But someone in the Council – they’re not saying who – offered this prime development site to the Masjid E-Ali mosque organisation for £1.5 million.severe shortage and high cost of suitable building land within the town”
Why? And what investigation would the Council do about it? When I asked these questions, the Council flannelled and stalled.
Second, “Masjid E-Ali”. As usual, they call the mosque a “community centre” for people of all communities, etc, etc. But ‘Masjid’ means ‘Mosque’. Besides, there’s a perfectly good community centre around the corner.
On their website, they boasted that they already had the contract to purchase the site from the Council, for £1.5m.
They also boast that two senior Ayatulluhs, Ayatullah Sistani of Iraq, and Ayatullah Khamenei of Iran, have given them a certificate of permission (“Khums Ijaaza”) to raise funds for the mosque.
So who are these two Ayatullahs?
Ayatullah Sistani is a hardline Iraqi cleric. He is on record as saying that gay people should be executed in the “worst, most severe way“. I hope Luton Council bears that in mind when it next celebrates “Luton in Harmony” day.
And it’s not just gays he’s got it in for. He doesn’t like kafirs much either. According to him, Kafir are No 8 of the 10 “essentially unclean” things. We rank below “1. Urine, 2. Faeces, 3. Semen, 4. Dead body, 5. Blood, 6. Dog, and 7. Pig”. But above “9. Alcoholic liquors, and 10. The sweat of an animal who persistently eats najasat”. Put simply, you and I are worse than shit according to one of the men this mosque outfit have gone to for endorsement.
The other Ayatullah is Ayatullah Khamenei, the organ-grinder to Ahmedinejad.
It gets worse. According to their website, the mosque have promised to give 50% of what they raise to the organisation of Ayatollah Sistani and 50% to the organisation of Ayatollah Khamenei. So that’s 50% to the mosque, 50% to Sistani, and 50% to Khamenei, but maths isn’t my strong point.
This mosque is obliged to send half its receipts to the top banana of a hostile and dangerous enemy.
So what steps will the Council now take to investigate a mosque organisation committed to handing funds to an organisation controlled by the man who has paid for so many British servicemens’ deaths? I asked them that at the meeting on 24th March 2011, but got no answer to that one either.
This is a former military site – the “Drill Hall”? A mosque is isn’t just a place of prayer and reflection like a church. Every mosque is modelled on the original mosque in Medina, where death sentences were passed, domestic and military policy instituted, wars planned, arms stored, soldiers trained, and troops dispatched to conquer Arabia.
And the tradition continues: Finsbury Park Mosque, the Munich mosque, many more in Iraq and Afghanistan – all have stored arms.
Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey put it right: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…”
But the good news is that this one has been stopped. It can be done.