Police 'try to stop rapper debating'

2:14pm Monday 18th September 2006

Controversial rapper Aki Nawaz has criticised police after claims they tried to gag him from speaking at a public debate.

The Bradford rapper was invited to be speaker at a meeting of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford (MECO) following the release of his band Fun-da-mental's album, All Is War.

Officers from Thames Valley Police say they were trying to protect the safety of Mr Nawaz and the public.

Mr Nawaz and MECO chairman Dr Taj Hargey say the police were violating their right to free speech and debate and went ahead with the meeting anyway, which passed without incident.

The album, which contains a track written from the perspective of a suicide bomber, caused a storm of controversy upon release after MP Andrew Dinnesmore claimed it glorified terrorism.

The rapper and producer says his record in no way justifies or condones terrorism and is merely trying to provoke debate on extremism in modern Britain.

Mr Nawaz said: "In the end there were no problems at all, I think the police were just trying to put the fear of God into people.

"The actual audience was very much that of middle England and it was an excellent debate. There were very few Muslims at all.

"It was interesting to talk to white women in their 50s about how they felt powerless. They said they had marched, petitioned and demonstrated against the war in Iraq and yet felt their voices had not been heard.

"The whole point of the album was to stir up debate and this is what happened."

Police officers contacted Dr Hargey in the days running up to the debate.

Dr Hargey is an academic and civil rights activist who campaigned about the apartheid regime in his native South Africa.

He says officers "made up lies" in a bid to pressurise him into cancelling, claiming Mr Nawaz's website contained recipes for making bombs and that far right groups were planning to attack the meeting if he spoke.

Dr Hargey, who organised the meeting, was furious with the police's involvement and said there was never any question of cancelling Mr Nawaz's appearance.

He said: "We are living in a democratic society and as such we should allow people to present a different perspective to the problems of extremism.

"When the police were telling me Aki had told people how to make liquid bombs, I knew this was untrue. What they wanted was me to cancel the event.

"Aki has been on Newsnight and Radio 4. I see no reason why he should not have spoken at our meeting.

"John Lennon sang songs of protest against violence and that is all Aki is doing."

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