East London Mosque hosts speaker who has 'called for Jewish women to be enslaved and pillaged'

Andrew Gilligan  

I'm the Telegraph's London Editor. This is where I write about London politics, London life and many other things I'm interested in, well beyond the capital. I'll also post source material for many of my newspaper stories here, so you can read the documents I refer to for yourself. Got a tip or a story? Email me at andrew.gilligan@telegraph.co.uk

I haven’t written about that self-proclaimed haven of moderation and tolerance, the East London Mosque, for a few weeks. After having their tolerance of hatred and extremism repeatedly exposed, they’ve been keeping their heads down. But now normal service is back.

Last Friday, according to publicity material (above) and its Facebook page, the mosque was due to host that conspicuous moderate, Sheikh Saad al-Beraik, who has reportedly stated: “Muslim brothers in Palestine, do not have any mercy neither compassion on the Jews, their blood, their money, their flesh. Their women are yours to take, legitimately. God made them yours. Why don't you enslave their women? Why don't you wage jihad? Why don't you pillage them?”

This is the second time Beraik has appeared at the mosque this year. He was due to speak at an event there in March, but after a row he appeared without speaking (the organisers said that they simply ran out of time to hear from him, and it wasn’t that he had been banned.)

Nice people, those East London Mosque folks!