Britain to keep out hate preachers

Home Secretary will announce new measures aimed at preventing extremists from entering the UK.

By JONNY PAUL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
neo nazis 298 ap (photo credit: AP [file])
neo nazis 298 ap
(photo credit: AP [file])
British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will announce new measures in the coming weeks aimed at preventing extremists from entering the UK. The tougher rules will be designed to stop so-called preachers of hate from stirring up tension, and will allow the government to stop neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and religious extremists from entering the country. Since 2005, around 230 people have been banned from entering Britain, including the radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Muhammad. He was banned from the UK following the 7/7 terror attacks in London in 2005 when then home secretary Charles Clarke used existing powers to conclude that his presence was "not conducive to the public good." The Sunday Mirror quoted a Home Office official who said the pending measures were aimed at preventing potential trouble-makers from entering the country and that those targeted would be placed on international watch-lists. Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne suggested the plans were inadequate. "The main problem with these sort of eye-catching gimmicks is they don't make us any safer at all," he said. "It doesn't deal with the people who are already here or indeed the people who are preaching hate over the Internet."