The worst thing was the picture, or mug-shot. In over 4 years, from our first year lecture at university, I had never seen him look like this. The first day I saw him he was smiling and likewise the last time. It’s funny how the big brothers are the calm and humble ones that always put a smile on your face, masha’Allah. And this is the only way I have seen him – for over 4 years.

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I remember in our last year, just before we went into the exam hall and I was getting in my last minute revision, I saw him looking all stressed and worried (but still smiling) about how little he prepared. I didn’t know what to say so I just gave him notes telling him – here, this will come up. Next thing I know when we get our results he came out with 1sts! I asked him what happened with him being unprepared… “I just made du’a to Allah”. What a brother, masha’Allah.

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It’s disappointing how his case has been reported by those who are allegedly ‘impartial’, and I hope that this piece will do something to balance the scales.

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Mohammed had made it clear in his trial that he did not support terrorism and his actions were only led by curiosity and political interest. Yet the media focuses on the authorities’ slander of Mohammed as being ‘radicalised’ by posting Islamic terrorist propaganda online. Lies.

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It seems that it is “radical” to have an interest in politics in the wake of contemporary world events and all the wars that have recently erupted (which amazingly almost all seem to be connected with the United States “foreign interests”) – or is this just for Muslims?

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One of the so-called ‘propaganda’ videos in issue showed “bodies of [dead] children and images of conflict, including a coalition jeep being blown up”. Curiously, Metropolitan Police’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Osborne, senior national co-ordinator for counter terrorism, said:

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Was he referring to the bodies of the children murdered by coalition forces? If this is so then the perpetrators should be arrested! Or was he rather referring to the coalition jeep being blown up – as though this is an act of terrorism, and the murdering of innocent little children is nothing.

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Regardless of which act was terrorism – what crime was committed? Where is the crime in reposting videos that are already in the public domain? Apparently it is “disseminating terrorist propaganda”. It seems persons and therefore, supposedly unbiased, news outlets are only allowed to “disseminate” propaganda telling one side of the story – anything else is a crime.

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Another alleged ‘crime’ was committed regarding a clip which had a photo of Bin Laden and a poem about him. Again, forgive me for my shortcomings, but I cannot manage to see a crime. The objective person must bear in mind that bin Laden played a significant role in the Afghan liberation, supported by the entire “Western” world against the Communist Soviets. Unsurprisingly the media failed to report on what the poem actually stated – meaning it probably had nothing to do with anything controversial otherwise they would undoubtedly have jumped on it.

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Would it be a crime for someone to merge a poem with the face of Hitler saying that he’s a good father? Or would it be a crime to merge a poem with the face of George Bush Jr – a man who has been responsible for the bloodshed of thousands if not millions and even admitted to ordering torture! Never would anybody be convicted of any crime in relation to any of these situations despite the crimes of those two individuals being so much greater than what bin Laden is accused of – so why has Mohammed been convicted?

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Perhaps the most shocking thing about brother Mohammed’s case, after the charge, is the sentence. He was sentenced to the maximum 5 years and detained in a Category A, top security prison. Judge David Paget said that the sentence had to be a deterrent to others.

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I don’t understand. A deterrent for what? For sympathising with little children who have lost their lives in an unjust war? What else has Mohammed done? What crime has he incited? When Babar Ahmad was arrested in 2003, sustaining 73 forensically recorded injuries, PC Roderick James-Bowen was initially cleared of all charges in a Police Misconduct Tribunal and was “commended” for his “great bravery”! Surely this is clear and explicit incitement of a brutal crime, grievous bodily harm? But of course it will never be considered as such. Whereas in a case of a Muslim – where facts can be manipulated to paint a wholly distorted picture of a ‘radicial’ person with ‘terrorist propaganda’ – I guess “where there is a will there is a way”.

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The admittedly disproportionate sentence, which is often given to armed robbers and rapists, was nothing other than a further show of injustice. And the internment in a Category A prison, supposedly for the most dangerous of criminals, is beyond ridiculous.

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