Homophobic and anti-Semitic preacher invited to London university
A Muslim cleric who has called Jews “filth” and gay people “sick” has been invited to speak at a London university tonight (Thursday).
Sheikh Abdullah Hakim Quick will be speaking at the Strand campus of Kings College tonight on “Islamic solutions to environmental problems”, as part of the university’s green week.
Sheikh Quick was featured on a New Zealand television programme in 2003 where he called Jewish people “filth”, said gays were “not natural” and warned that Islam’s position on homosexuality was “death”.
Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell accused him of “coming close” to advocating violence against gays and said university bosses were too “weak and cowardly” to prevent such clerics visiting campuses.
He said: “The failure of many university authorities to take a stand against homophobic and anti-Semitic clerics is complicity with fundamentalism and radicalisation. It is collusion with the gateways to terrorism.”
A Kings College spokesman told the Evening Standard: “[Sheikh Quick] has already spoken at other universities without controversy and there is no indication that the topic of his talk will be controversial.
“The Dean of King’s College London, who oversees multi-faith relations, and the president of the students’ union will attend the event. If they deem any comments from Sheikh Abdullah Hakim Quick to be offensive to minorities, the talk will be stopped.”
In November, University College London cancelled an invitation to extremist Islamic preacher Abu Usamah to speak at its Islamic Society.
Usamah has been filmed advocating the killing of gays and Muslims who leave their faith and has described women as “deficient” and “incomplete”.
