Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May is banning "Muslims Against Crusades [MAC]," the latest name used by a British Islamist group that has been banned several times before. The action comes in response to the group's planned protest of the United Kingdom's November 11th Armistice Day, which honors the fallen of the nation's armed forces.
"It is not allowed for Muslims to mourn the death of any Muslim," said Muslims Against Crusades leader Anjem Choudary in a video address about the group's protest. "The one who stands with them, he is one of them," he added, before calling the honoring of British veterans "an insult against Islam and Muslims." Last year's protest saw Islamists burning a symbolic sign of British remembrance and chanting "British soldiers burn in hell" during the moment of silence.
The banning of the organization makes membership or support of it a criminal offense. May claimed that she was satisfied that MAC was "simply another name for an organization already proscribed under a number of names." The group was originally banned in 2006 for its glorification of terrorism, including the honoring of the 9/11 hijackers as the "Magnificent 19."
MAC also recently threatened British MP Mike Freer who he was meeting voters at a London mosque, forcing him to be evacuated by police escort. Ahead of the event, the group warned that an Islamist stabbing attack last year on MP Stephen Timms, should serve as a "piercing reminder" to politicians that "their presence is no longer welcome in any Muslim area."