In the shadow of major Gaza protests in London, campaigners will tomorrow stage what they hope will be a large scale anti-ISIS demonstration in the UK capital.
Following this week’s action outside Number 10 Downing Street, Britain’s Kurdish community alongside counter-extremism campaigners will march from BBC Broadcasting House towards the US embassy before moving towards Marble Arch.
There may be concerns that the demonstration would be met by London’s pro-ISIS campaigners who were spotted on Oxford Street, moments away from where the march is due to start and end, earlier this week. Britain’s foremost radical preacher Anjem Choudary yesterday acknowledged that his “students” from the formerly named al-Muhajiroun group were responsible for the pro-Islamic State pamphleteering.
Another concern for the organisers will no doubt be the presence of the English Defence League (EDL), which is sympathetic to the anti-ISIS cause, though has consistently been implicated in racist, or anti-Islam campaigning, rather than simply anti-extremism causes.
Last year the EDL’s leader Tommy Robinson left the organisation claiming that the group’s street protests were not constructive to the cause of battling radical Islamism.
The Left Food Forward blog reports: “demonstrators will be calling on the UK government to make more effort in assisting the Yezidi people and put diplomatic pressure on states such as Turkey and Qatar for their policy of supporting jihadism in the region.
“ISIS linked terrorists are carrying out a wholesale massacre against the Kurdish people and other ethnic and religious groups including members of the Shia, Sufi, Christian and Yezidi communities.”
One of Britain’s leading, Muslim-run counter-extremism organisations is supporting the event. The Quilliam foundation said: “We at Quilliam believe such a demonstration is vital at this critical juncture because, unopposed, ISIS will continue to take territory, kill innocent civilians, take women as slaves and create conditions in which many children will die of starvation.”
Quilliam Chairman Maajid Nawaz said: “I hope as many people as possible turn up in order to express the outrage we all feel towards ISIS and their barbaric actions. I also hope our government does all it can to support the victims of ISIS as well as those on the ground who are fighting against them.”
The march will start at 1pm. Breitbart London will be present to report on the proceedings.
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