Islam4UK planned to march through Wootton Bassett where war dead are honoured [GALLO/GETTY]
Islam4UK planned to march through Wootton Bassett where war dead are honoured [GALLO/GETTY]
Alan Johnson, the home secretary, said on Tuesday that the new order would make it illegal to join Islam4UK, also known as al Muhajiroun.
An Islamist group that planned to march through an English town known for honouring dead British soldiers is to be banned by the British government under counter terrorism laws.
"I have ... laid an order which will proscribe Al Muhajiroun, Islam4UK, and a number of the other names the organisation goes by," he said.
"Proscription is a tough but necessary power to tackle terrorism and is not a course we take lightly. We are clear that an organisation should not be able to circumvent proscription by simply changing its name."
'Dictatorship'
Anjem Choudary, Islam4UK's leader, told the BBC the move was a "failure of the concept of democracy and freedom".
"What the people will see is if you don't agree with the government and you want to expose their foreign policy, then freedom quickly dissipates and turns into dictatorship," he said.
Choudary provoked debate earlier this year by suggesting his group would march through Wootton Bassett, where soldiers' bodies are honoured.
He said the group's action would highlight Afghan civilian deaths at the hands of Nato-led forces.
But politicians described the proposed march as distasteful and many called for the group to be banned.
The order, which comes into effect on Thursday, will also ban the group under the names Call to Submission, Islam4UK, Islamic Path, and London School of Sharia, the Press Association reported.
Islam4UK, an Islamist group that was intending to march through a British town known for honouring fallen troops, is to be banned by the government today under counterterrorism laws.

"I have ... laid an order which will proscribe Al-Muhajiroun, Islam4UK, and a number of the other names the organisation goes by," said the home secretary, Alan Johnson. Johnson said that the group had tried to escape the ban by changing its name, and said that the move was needed in order to "tackle terrorism."

But Islam4UK leader Anjem Choudary said that the ban, made under the Terrorism Act 2000, is unfair because the group is not involved in violent activity. "We are an ideological and political movement. We do not engage in any military activities or any violence," he said to VOA News.

Islam4UK was originally founded in the 1980s under the name al-Muhajiroun. The tiny Islamic group has since won much publicity in Britain by threatening to carry out controversial demonstrations.

Last week, the group announced plans for a march through Wooton Basset, a small market town where British soldiers killed in Afghanistan are honored, but the demonstration was called off earlier today.

According to the UK Home Office, fifteen people have been convicted of criminal offenses related to banned groups since 2001. A total of 45 groups are listed on the Home Office Web site as banned under the Terrorism Act.