Supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir at a pro-Hamas rally in London. Photo: Reuters/Martin Pope

Britain’s interior minister on Monday announced a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir, a militant Islamist organization that has long been in the sights of the UK authorities for its violently antisemitic rhetoric and enthusiastic support of terrorist groups including Hamas.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir is an antisemitic organization that actively promotes and encourages terrorism, including praising and celebrating the appalling Oct. 7 attacks [by Hamas terrorists in Israel],” British Home Secretary James Cleverly told parliament on Monday.

“Proscribing this terrorist group will ensure that anyone who belongs to and invites support for them will face consequences. It will curb Hizb ut-Tahrir’s ability to operate as it currently does,” Cleverly said.

The banning order will come into force on Friday unless MPs decide to vote it down. Under its terms, certain offenses are punishable with up to 14 years in prison, while the group’s property and assets face seizure now that it is classified as a “terrorist” organization.

The impetus for the ban was a pro-Hamas rally which Hizb ut-Tahrir staged in London on Oct. 21, as thousands of protestors descended on the British capital to demonstrate their opposition to Israel. Antisemitic slogans and calls for jihad were on display, leading Cleverly’s predecessor as Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, to order a review of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s activities.

Previous British governments — including the administrations of former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron — had investigated the possibility of banning Hizb ut-Tahrir but were told by government lawyers that the group had not violated any anti-terrorism legislation.

Hizb ut-Tahrir first emerged in Jordanian-occupied Jerusalem in 1952, formed by a Palestinian Muslim cleric, Muhammad Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani. Its ideology is based on an uncompromising struggle between Muslims and non-believers that places the duty of jihad — holy war — at its center and demands the submission of all non-believers to Islam.

The group’s focus on what it calls the “near enemy” — the current rulers of Arab and Islamic countries who are deemed to be corrupt — has led to it being banned in most Arab countries as well as Indonesia, the state with the world’s biggest Muslim population.

Active in more than 50 countries, Hizb ut-Tahrir launched a chapter in the UK in the early 1980s. Its current leader is Wahid Asif Shaida, who also goes by the name Abdul Wahid, a family doctor with a practice in north London.

After Shaida warmly praised Hamas during a television interview in December, the health authority where his practice is based expressed concern over his “distressing comments,” adding that it was recommending an investigation of him by the National Health Service (NHS).

In that interview, Shaida described Hamas as a “resistance organization,” praising the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom — in which more than 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were murdered and more than 200 kidnapped amid atrocities that included rape and mutilation — as “a very welcome punch on the nose of the enemy.”