Petition launched to fully proscribe Hezbollah as a terrorist group
Campaign by Jewish News and the Zionist Federation calls for the government to ban the Lebanon-based group in its entirety
A petition was launched this week to have Hezbollah fully proscribed as a terrorist group.
The Zionist Federation and Jewish News have joined widespread calls for the government to close a loophole that enabled Hezbollah flags to be paraded through central London during the annual al-Quds march in June. Only the military wing is currently banned in this country but both share the same flag.
A petition on the UK Parliament website, launched this week, notes that Hezbollah “hates the West, is anti-Semitic and perpetrates international acts of terror”. On the distinction between the Lebanon-based group’s armed and political wings, it adds: “Even Hezbollah’s own leadership does not differentiate between the two.”
The petition is part of a campaign that will also include writing letters to MPs that was announced in the immediate aftermath of the parade this summer, but the petition could only be launched after the summer recess.
Speaking in October 2012, Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem said: “We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other.”
In June, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the Government would look into the issue after Sadiq Khan, CFI and LFI joined calls for a complete ban. Petitioners call on Rudd “to once and for all listen to Hezbollah themselves and proscribe Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation in its entirety in the UK”. If there are 10,000 signatures, the Government must respond, while if there are 100,000 the issue will be considered for debate in Parliament.
You can view the petition here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200023
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