Blocked!

A very sudden development. Is the worm turning?

Supermosque for 70,000 'will be blocked'

Controversial plans to build a "supermosque" on the doorstep of the London Olympics will be blocked by the Government.

Ruth Kelly's Whitehall department is expected to refuse planning permission for the London Markaz, which would be the biggest religious building in Britain with room for 70,000 worshippers.

A senior security source said that he was concerned about the proposed mosque, and expected ministers to use their powers to call in, and turn down, the planning application.

The move was confirmed by a senior Government source, who said there were fears that the giant mosque could damage community relations in the area, and added: "We are going to stop it."

Until now, it was thought that planners would rubber-stamp the proposed mosque, which was agreed in principle in a 2001 deal between Newham Council and Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen.

Why would they block it? Red Ken the commie London mayor is for it.

The group behind the plans is Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary sect whose charitable trust, Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen, has owned the 18-acre site since 1996. Tablighi Jamaat was called "an ante-chamber for fundamentalism" by French security services. Two of the July 7 London suicide bombers are believed to have attended one of its mosques.

A spokesman said: "Our client utterly refutes any links to terrorism. It is a predominantly apolitical organisation seeking to go about its faith in a peaceful way."

islam is inherently political.

Tablighi Jamaat is a conservative and ultra-orthodox group with close links with the Wahhabi form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of British Muslims are sent by Tablighi Jamaat to madrassas in Pakistan every year, raising fears that some may be brainwashed. A leaked FBI memo alleged that al-Qaeda was using the organisation "as cover... to network with other extremists".

If only the same can happen to the mosque construction in Boston by the islamic Society of Boston -- an Wahabbist Saudi-backed organization revealed to have ties to terrorists.

Construction has been delayed, but the stake through the heart ahs not yet been hammered in, as legal battles drag on with suits by critics charging church-state financing violations by the city (selling public land worth $2 million for $175,000 for the mosque), and counter-suits of defamation by the isb. Read updates at Daniel Pipes.

The moral of this too-oft-repeated tale is not hard to guess: politicians – and bureaucrats, journalists, clergy, academics, et al. – need to know an Islamic institution is clean of Islamist associations and intentions before endorsing it, much less selling it government-owned land at fire-sale prices. Good will and ecumenical intent cannot substitute for research.

And good luck with that!