By DAILY EXPRESS
Added: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:00:00 UTC

Reposted from:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/13553/Fears-growing-over-

GORDON Brown is under pressure to block a £75million "mega mosque", amid claims one of the suspected Glasgow Airport bombers belongs to the radical Islamic group behind it.

More than 200,000 people have signed a Downing Street petition calling on the Prime Minister to intervene over plans for the mosque near the Olympics site in east London.

It is being funded by the fundamentalist Tablighi Jamaat sect. One member of the sect is said to be Kafeel Ahmed, who was engulfed in flames when a Jeep laden with gas canisters crashed into a Glasgow Airport building two weeks ago.

The 27-year-old from Bangalore is fighting for his life in hospital after suffering 90 per cent burns.

He is said to have taken up the teachings of Tablighi Jamaat after he was asked to leave his local mosque which he had tried to convert to what he called a purer form of Islam.

The 7/7 suicide bombers Moham med Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer attended the European headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat at Dews bury, West Yorkshire.

The sect's plans for a huge mosque just a mile from the main Olympics stadium have caused much concern.
Local Tory councillor Alan Craig said: "It will be a horrendous security nightmare if they are allowed to build?this large mosque so close to the Olympics.

"They have a growing and ominous track record as further young men follow Tablighi teaching about Islam and then go on to plan horrendous atrocities."

The Newham councillor accused the sect of radicalising and dehumanising young Muslims and said: "The dangerous truth about Tablighi Jamaat is coming out.

"We must watch the gap between what they say and what they do."

The centre-right think tank Civitas has also raised concerns about the mosque which will hold 12,000 people — four times as many as Britain's largest Christian building, Liver pool's Anglican cathedral.

It said: "Are we sure, as a nation, that we want by far the largest place of worship in our land to be sponsored by an organisation which holds views directly opposed to our democracy and a religion which, in many parts of the world, denies essential freedoms?"

Tablighi Jamaat, funded by millions of pounds sent from zealots in Saudi Arabia, has hired public relations company, Indigo, to deflect criticism from its mosque project.

An Indigo spokesman said yesterday the group was aware of reports linking Kafeel Ahmed to its religious teachings but could not say whether he was a worshipper or not because "we do not have membership cards".

He said that Tablighi Jamaat was a peace-loving mainstream religious group with 80 million followers around the world, many in India and Saudi Arabia.

RELATED: Petition to Abolish plans to build a £100 million mega Mosque
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ScrapMegaMosque/

TAGGED: RELIGION