A man paraded past the Houses of Parliament draped in an Islamic State flag without being arrested by police, despite the fact that support for ISIS is unlawful in the United Kingdom.
He carried on his back a young girl who was waving a smaller version of the jihadist group’s flag just days before the anniversary of the 7/7 terror attacks.
Incredibly, police confirmed that they briefly stopped the man in the busy Westminster tourist area on Saturday, but did not arrest him as his actions were deemed ‘within the law’. He was allowed to walk free and continue his display of the black flag that is a symbol of the radical Islamist jihadi terror group banned in the UK .
The pictures surfaced yesterday on a Korean forum and quickly spread across social media.
#İngiltere #Londra da #IŞİD flamasıyla ünlü saat kulesi Big Ben civarında dolaşan bir şahıs görüntülendi pic.twitter.com/joMqh8W5PQ
— Mete Sohtaoğlu (@metesohtaoglu) July 5, 2015
In a statement obtained by The Guardian, the police said:
“The man was spoken to by officers, with consideration given to relevant legislation, particularly the Public Order Act. The decision was taken by officers at the time that the man was acting within the law. He was not arrested.
“Wearing, carrying or displaying of an emblem or flag, by itself, is not an offence unless the way in which, or the circumstance in which, the emblem is worn, carried or displayed is such as to cause reasonable suspicion that the person is a supporter or member of a proscribed organisation.
“While support of and membership of ISIS is unlawful it is not a criminal offence to advocate the creation of an independent state.”
The shocking incident comes just days before London stops Tuesday to mark the anniversary of the 7/7 terror attacks on the capital and a week after 30 British tourists were massacred on a Tunisia beach by an ISIS jihad affiliate.
Former Scotland Yard terror chief Peter Clarke has warned that ISIS poses ‘a huge and deadly threat’.
He told the Daily Mail: “At the moment we are arresting one person for terror-related crimes every day. That’s the highest rate at any point in 15 years, apart from the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and 7/7. There are 120 people awaiting trial as we speak.’
But he added: ‘Every year since 7/7, massive plots to commit terrorist acts have been thwarted.’ He called UK counter-terrorism ‘the envy of the world’.
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