UK: Gay hate Islamic preacher to visit Reading University
An Islamic cleric, who has called for gay people to be punished with death, is due to visit Reading University later this week.
Anti-extremist campaign group Student Rights says Abu Usamah at-Thahabi will attend Reading University’s Muslim Society on Thursday as part of a series of talks designed to raise awareness of Islam as a faith.
Student Rights has called on the University of Reading to review it decision to allow the controversial cleric on campus.
Thahabi’s extreme views have already been documented in a Channel 4 programme made in 2007 and by the Centre for Social Cohesion.
He has been caught referring to gay people as “perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered” and has recommended that gay men should be thrown off a “mountain”.
Thahabi was invited to make a speech at Brunel University’s Islamic Society last November.
This followed a decision of Warwick University Islamic Society to withdraw its invitation to Thahabi in January 2012 after a student backlash.
