From Harrow Council for Justice
Open letter to honourable Prime Minister Theresa May and Home Secretary Amber Rudd for their action and response
We would like to draw your attention to a very recent article in the Times:’Tory MP Bob Blackman hosts anti-Muslim nationalist Tapan Ghosh’.
An Indian extremist Tapan Ghosh, the keynote speaker at the meeting on 18 October 2017 hosted by your MP Bob Blackman in the Commons, has been reported making inflammatory statements like ‘he had created a “Hindu Defence Force” in his state to protect Hindu communities against Muslim violence’ and that ‘Your girls and daughters are threatened by grooming but in our country our land is threatened and our existence is threatened’.
Before this, Mr Ghosh was pictured with the UK far-right leader Tommy Robinson at a meeting in London on Monday. Also some of Mr Ghosh tweets are widely known:
An Indian extremist Tapan Ghosh, the keynote speaker at the meeting on 18 October 2017 hosted by your MP Bob Blackman in the Commons, has been reported making inflammatory statements like ‘he had created a “Hindu Defence Force” in his state to protect Hindu communities against Muslim violence’ and that ‘Your girls and daughters are threatened by grooming but in our country our land is threatened and our existence is threatened’.
Before this, Mr Ghosh was pictured with the UK far-right leader Tommy Robinson at a meeting in London on Monday. Also some of Mr Ghosh tweets are widely known:
Considering
your position on dealing with extremists, hate-preachers and hate
crimes, it is unbelievable that you allowed Mr Ghosh, an Indian
Hindu-nationalist with extreme attitudes, to enter in the UK!
Not
only Mr Ghosh smoothly entered the UK but Mr Blackman, a Conservative
member of the communities and local government committee, hosted him in
the Commons during an event called “Tolerating the Intolerant”.
We are concerned that if such a hosting at the Commons is not meaningfully dealt with, then inviting and promoting extremists at the Parliament would have no limits – it could be an anti-Semitic guest next!
We have nothing about MPs using the Parliament resources to support community events but holding any divisive/ hateful activities, especially with religious overtone, could only reflect badly on our graceful Parliament.
We don’t wish to draw political party parallel here but the Labour has set good example in dealing even with any allegations of negative comments (past or present) about any communities by its members/ MPs. For example, it would be unthinkable for a Labour MP to host an anti-Jew speaker at the Parliament (or anywhere) and getting away with it.
We need to have one standard in confronting extremism and MP actions.
We would like you to appreciate that socio-political contradictions play a great part in triggering ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalism‘ and the state enforcement arrangements without the community cooperation and support are not enough to effectively address these.
We support the call to Suspend & investigate Blackman for inviting extremists to Parliament from Mr Blackman’s highly marginal Harrow East constituency.
We look forward for your action and response!
Jaiya Shah
Chairman
Harrow Council for Justice
We are concerned that if such a hosting at the Commons is not meaningfully dealt with, then inviting and promoting extremists at the Parliament would have no limits – it could be an anti-Semitic guest next!
We have nothing about MPs using the Parliament resources to support community events but holding any divisive/ hateful activities, especially with religious overtone, could only reflect badly on our graceful Parliament.
We don’t wish to draw political party parallel here but the Labour has set good example in dealing even with any allegations of negative comments (past or present) about any communities by its members/ MPs. For example, it would be unthinkable for a Labour MP to host an anti-Jew speaker at the Parliament (or anywhere) and getting away with it.
We need to have one standard in confronting extremism and MP actions.
We would like you to appreciate that socio-political contradictions play a great part in triggering ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalism‘ and the state enforcement arrangements without the community cooperation and support are not enough to effectively address these.
We support the call to Suspend & investigate Blackman for inviting extremists to Parliament from Mr Blackman’s highly marginal Harrow East constituency.
We look forward for your action and response!
Jaiya Shah
Chairman
Harrow Council for Justice
