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From The Guardian:
Ban homophobic clerics from mosques, gay rights campaigners urge
Activists call upon London mosque leaders to stop allowing their premises to be used to ‘promote gay-hate campaigns’
- Riazat Butt, religious affairs correspondent
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 June 2011 18.05 BST
- Article history

The East London Mosque said: ‘Any speaker who is believed to have said something homophobic will not be allowed to use our premises’. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
Gay rights campaigners have urged mosque leaders in east London to ban homophobic clerics from using their premises, following a 21% rise in gay hate crime in the area.
Activists, including journalist Julie Bindel and Pride trustee Colm Howard-Lloyd, said some preachers at the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had “created an atmosphere in which hate is socially acceptable; they have spread a message in which maiming and violence is the most dutiful, honourable, devout thing to do”.
Their concerns follow the £100 fine given to Mohammed Hasnath, who put up “Gay-Free Zone” stickers in the area; the case of Oliver Hemsley, who was paralysed from the neck down in August 2008 following a vicious attack; and Metropolitan police figures showing that gay hate crime had risen in the borough of Tower Hamlets – where the mosque and adjoining centre are located – from 67 attacks to 81 in a year.
In a statement, the campaigners said that while the East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre had distanced themselves from the sticker campaign, they had “hosted numerous hate preachers who have promoted the most vicious homophobia imaginable over the years”. Continue Reading →






