page_title: Al-Muhajiroun
section_title: Muslims Against Crusades: 2010–2011
hierarchical_section_title: Al-Muhajiroun / History / Muslims Against Crusades: 2010–2011
caption_attribution_description: In the lych gate, Corley. Remembrance Sunday.
context_page_description: Al-Muhajiroun is a proscribed militant Salafi jihadist network based in the United Kingdom. The founder of the group was Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian who previously belonged to Hizb ut-Tahrir; he was not permitted to re-enter Britain after 2005. According to The Times, the organisation has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia, and antisemitism. The group became notorious for its September 2002 conference "The Magnificent 19", praising the September 11, 2001 attacks. The network mutates periodically so as to evade the law; it operates under many different aliases.
  The group in its original incarnation operated openly in the United Kingdom from 14 January 1986 until the British Government announced an intention ban in August 2005. The group preemptively "disbanded" itself in 2005 to avoid this, two aliases used by the group were proscribed by the British Home Secretary under the Terrorism Act 2006; Al Ghurabaa and The Saviour Sect. Further proscriptions followed with the Terrorism Act 2000 where Islam4UK was proscribed as an Al-Muhajiroun alias and Muslims Against Crusades followed in 2011.
context_section_description: The network re-emerged as Muslims Against Crusades (abbreviated MAC), notionally under Abu Assadullah in 2010, featuring members of Islam4UK after their banning such as boxer Anthony Small and Anjem Choudary. Muslims Against Crusades maintained that Muslims are not "obliged to obey the law of the land in whatever country they reside". In 2011 the group proposed that Muslims should set up independent emirates in select cities in the UK, operating under sharia (Islamic law) entirely outside British law. The group suggested the towns of Bradford, Dewsbury, and Tower Hamlets in the East End of London as the possible first test beds for these entities. The group has often clashed with the English Defence League. Home Secretary Theresa May banned the group from midnight on 11 November 2011, making membership or support of the group a criminal offence. The group was denounced by the Muslim Council of Britain, who described MAC as "a tiny, and utterly deplorable, extremist group". Many former MAC activists are currently active in Islamist groups known as 'Millatu Ibrahim' and the 'Tawheed Movement.'
  MAC engaged in a number of incidents including protests outside the Royal Albert Hall and in Kensington on 11 November 2010, when two large plastic poppies were burned during the Remembrance Day silence. A 2010 Remembrance Day ceremony in London was disrupted by members of the organization, who were protesting against British Army actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. They burnt large poppies and chanted "British soldiers burn in hell" during the two-minute silence. Two of the men were arrested and charged for threatening behavior. One was convicted and fined £50. The same group planned to hold another protest in 2011 named Hell for Heroes, declaring that soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve to go to hell. The group was banned by the Home Secretary the day before the planned protest.
  Throughout 2010 and 2011 there were various protests against the imprisonment of Muslims, with calls for their release; and calls for a withdrawal of non-Muslim forces from Muslim countries. There was a protest against pastor Terry Jones when he burnt a Quran (the holy book of Islam) in Florida, US on 20 March 2011.
  They applied to the police to stage a demonstration in London to disrupt the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on 29 April 2011, but this was not allowed. They later cancelled their protest due to a "possible danger to life"
  On 2 May 2011 Osama Bin Laden, who had led the Islamist al-Qaeda organization responsible for violent attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, was killed in Pakistan by US forces.  On 7 May hundreds of UK Muslims and MAC members held a rally and Salat al-Janazah (funeral prayer) for him outside the US embassy in London.  When protesters tried to storm the embassy there were clashes with police.  Anjem Choudary, who organised the protest, warned of an attack similar to the 7 July 2005 London bombings in response to Bin Laden's death.
  On 30 July around 50 members of MAC and Waltham Forest Muslims marched for two hours from Leyton tube station to Walthamstow town square calling for democracy to be replaced by sharia law and chanted slogans such as 'democracy—hypocrisy', 'Sharia for UK' and 'Secularism go to hell'. In August, members of Muslims Against Crusades held a demonstration denouncing the Shia denomination and "anti-Islamic" Shia regimes of Syria and Iran. To mark the tenth anniversary of 11 September attacks, around 100 men linked to the group protested outside the US embassy in London, burning US flags and chanting through megaphones.  The protest could be heard by mourners in 11 September Memorial Garden nearby, where a minute's silence was being observed to mark the first aeroplane hitting the World Trade Centre in New York City.
  On 10 November 2011 British Home Secretary Theresa May banned the group after it planned to repeat the poppy-burning demonstration; membership of Muslims Against Crusades became illegal at midnight. On 2 December 2011 twenty people were arrested on 
caption: During Remembrance Day 2010, Al-Muhajroun acting under Muslims Against Crusades, courted controversy by burning poppies during the two-minute silence.
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