Part Two: Hizb ut-Tahrir Canada. Antisemitic. Anti-Christian. “Into the hands of theocrats and thugs”
Why should you care about them?
UPDATE. 20:53 January 6, 2025
On January 18. 2025, somewhere in the City of Hamilton, in the province of Ontario, at the time of writing, a conference by the Jew-hating Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) one of the most perilous fanatical antisemitic and anti-Christian Muslim radical organizations in the world, will be convened.
This is the second time this terrorist entity has ‘attempted’ to host a conference in Canada. Last year after Hizb ut-Tahrir was declared a terrorist entity in the UK their event was cancelled. However, in 2013 they did convene a conference at the Toronto Congress Centre.
Raheel Raza, a respected Canadian author and human rights activist, attended the event organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir Canada.
To quote Raheel Raza:
“I left the meeting trembling, partly with anger and partly with fear: anger because I saw a straightforward attempt to hijack our freedoms and, by turning them against us, to impose sharia; fear because my fellow Muslims are allowing our faith be hijacked from us -- into the hands of theocrats and thugs.”
Since 2007, I have been following the activities of one of the most blatant antisemitic and anti-Christian organizations allowed to flourish. An organization that has enormous worldwide appeal. This extremist group has more than one million members spread through an estimated 45 countries. Many countries have banned or severely curtailed Hizb ut-Tahrir, including India, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kuwait, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh and Tajikistan. The UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands have all banned this terrorist entity, and so have Russia and China. Yet, they operate freely in the USA and Canada. Why?
Over the years a plethora of international organizations and specialists have denounced this terrorist entity.
In a report published in 2008 by Islam in Europe, the Dutch security service AIVD said:
“The movement [Hizb ut-Tahrir] operates exceptionally secretly and has a cell structure with an almost military hierarchy. The ideology is characterized by virulent anti-Zionism and intense aversion to secular governments and ideologies, the complete shunning of those who believe differently and prescribing a confrontational and strongly polarizing message.”
In Poland, Wojciech Grabowski of the Department of International Relations at the University of Gdansk stated in a published paper:
“Hizb ut-Tahrir is in opposition to capitalism, democracy, Zionism (all dialogue with other religions is forbidden) and to the West.” He says every element of the organization’s ideology has two sides: radical and liberal, peaceful and armed.”
On July 19, 2009, Hizb ut-Tahrir America (HTA) hosted a conference in Oak Lawn, a suburb of Chicago, in support of the establishment of a Caliphate. Here’s what Madeleine Gruen of counterterrorismblog.org a unique, multi-expert blog to the counter-terrorism community, had to say at the time about it.
“Last fall, [2008] after HTA issued a leaflet in its own name calling for Muslims not to participate in the U.S. elections, I wrote a brief post on CTB about the possible transition of HTA to the second stage of its development. According to party doctrine, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) implements its strategy in three stages–The first stage is the covert level of development in which members are recruited and trained. In the second stage, members promote the party’s methods and objectives publicly in order to win the support of the Muslim population… Indeed, HTA’s announcement that it will host the Khilafah conference in July indicates that the U.S.-based branch now perceives itself as solidly prepared to emerge from its covert status into the second stage.”
Pakistan’s PAK Institute For Peace Studies (PIPS) has referred to HuT as a “global revolutionary Islamist movement”:
“HT is an ideological group that falls somewhere between political Islamists and militant Islamists and may also be classified as a kind of a revolutionary Islamist set-up. HT emphatically asserts that the only way to progress, prosperity and development is the implementation of Islam as an ideology in Pakistan and in the whole world. In Pakistan, it has an anti-constitutional and anti-democratic outlook and agenda, and its narrative on militant and violent movements and groups in the country remains vague. It has well developed tactics to communicate with the masses and propagate its ideology. The danger in discourses such as HuT is not so much in its ability to achieve popular appeal in Pakistan. Rather, its appeal will always remain niche and exclusive. The group primarily targets Pakistan Army, the educated youth, bureaucracy and the business community to win their support and sympathies to realize their Khilafah plan…
Most analysts tend to watch madrassas and popular mass movements for signs of radicalization. The danger with HT is ever more serious and often overlooked because it is not always visible and does not conform to stereotypes.”
In Australia, on June 17, 2024, The Age reported:
“Fringe Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is using front groups to spread its message to young people.” They added: “On Sunday, this masthead revealed he [Mohammad Alwahwah] is one of the activists involved with radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, a controversial fringe international political organization that has spent years lobbying for an Islamic caliphate. The group’s most extreme Australian supporters have been exposed praising the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel as a step towards its caliphate goal.”
Dennis Ignatius is a 36-year veteran of the Malaysian Foreign Service. He is presently a foreign policy consultant. This is what he has to say about HuT:
“[Hizb ut-Tahrir] happens to be one of the most dangerous extremist groups ever to have come out of the Middle East. The fact that they have been able to establish themselves here [Malaysia] and gain credibility so easily speaks volumes about the kind of nation we are becoming.” He adds: “Despite its religious overtones, HuT is in fact a very structured totalitarian organization, akin to a disciplined Marxist-Leninist party. Unlike groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS which seek to gain power through violent confrontation, HuT works from within to seize control. It focuses on key sectors – particularly the military and bureaucracy – to infiltrate, recruit, indoctrinate and radicalize. They sow dissent against the government, undermine and discredit other Muslim political parties, and press for extra constitutional change.”
The preponderance of evidence from sources supports the assertion that it is about time the U.S. administration and the Canadian government might well be advised to reassess its position and ban Hizb-ut Tahrir as a terrorist entity.
What is your opinion?
The above sources include JewishinfoNews and Gatestone Institute.
Alan L. Simons is an author, writer and social & allyship advocate. He writes on matters relating to intolerance, hate, antisemitism, Islamophobia, conflict, and terrorism. As a diplomat, he served as the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Rwanda to Canada, post-genocide era. He recently published his seventh book.