Islamic 'holy war' books stay on public library shelves, Town Hall insists

06 September 2007

By Mike Brooke and Ted Jeory

ISLAMIC books slammed by the BBC in a TV report about works promoting 'holy war' are not being withdrawn from public libraries in London's East End.

Tower Hamlets council won't take books highlighted by Newsnight off the shelves because it hasn't been proved they are breaking the law, the East London Advertiser has been told.

A BBC investigation found books on 'holy war' were available on shelves at six public libraries up and down the country, including Whitechapel's Idea Store.

Libraries in Tower Hamlets, one of the most heavily populated Muslim areas in the UK, are said to be stocking works by Hamza and al Faisal, both jailed for incitement to murder.

Their books were also found in the north London council flat used by the failed bombers of the 26 bus in Shoreditch and on the Underground three weeks after the2005 London 7/7 suicide bombings.

Other authors found on the shelves include Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Sayyid Qult, a major influence on Osama bin Laden.

Tower Hamlets was found to have 40 books by these two men.

The authority insisted it had purchased a wider range of Islamic books "to reflect the broad range of views within the Islamic world."

But a council statement today (Sept 6) admitted: "Of the 580 titles on books about Islam currently stocked, 47 are by the five authors listed by Newsnight, such as Maududi, Qutb, Abu-Hamza, Faisal and Phillips, eight per cent of our whole collection.

"Books about Islam account for considerably less than a-quarter of one per cent of our entire stock."

The Town Hall took advice from the Chartered Institute of Libraries & Information Professionals on "intellectual freedom" after being contacted by the BBC.

The advice was that "access to information should not be restricted on any grounds except that of the law."

If publicly-available material has not incurred legal penalties, then it should not be excluded on moral, political, religious, racial or gender grounds to satisfy the demands of sectional interest, the Town Hall was advised.

A council spokesman told the Advertiser: "It is for this reason we have not withdrawn the literature highlighted to us by Newsnight."

But the council would withdraw the books from library shelves should the Centre for Social Cohesion or the BBC produce evidence that the publishers have been successfully prosecuted.