Why is the Guardian giving a platform to Hizb ut-Tahrir?

On Friday the Guardian published a lengthy interview by Peter Oborne with Abdul Wahid, a leading British member of the Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The two men appear to be quite friendly. “I have known Wahid for around a decade”, Oborne reveals, and the pair “have dinner occasionally.”

The interview seems to have been a congenial affair, in which Oborne gave Wahid the opportunity to rebut some of the accusations made against HT. At the end, Oborne concludes:

“You can say many things about Wahid, and be appalled by much of what he says. But in a democracy he surely has the right to say it. Whatever the government thinks.”

Part of their interview was about antisemitism, and it reveals many of the double standards, and much of the moral blindness that characterises this kind of apologetics for Islamism.

Oborne refers to a leaflet published by Hizb ut-Tahrir in 1999 called The Muslim Ummah will never submit to the Jews. Oborne writes:

"It contained unpleasant language, some of which I read out to Wahid, and invite him to denouced the article. He refuses."

Please read the rest of the article from Left Foot Forward here.