Altaf Hussain, Godfather of Karachi - resident of the London borough of Edgware

On his blog George posted this about Altaf Hussain.

This entry was posted on May 14, 2013, in Pakistan and tagged Altaf Hussain, election, Imran Khan, Karachi, MQM, terrorism. Bookmark the permalink.

Yesterday I called upon the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to arrest a British citizen for incitement to murder. It is an open and shut case. You can watch his lips move on television, broadcast from London, in the wake of the controversial election count in the giant port city of Karachi, Pakistan. Hussain openly threatened the young democracy protesters agitating for a re-run of the election there that he would have them cut them down with swords.

No-one should think this mere rhetoric, Hussain is already convicted in Pakistan for multiple murder extortion organised crime and terrorist offences. That’s why he lives in Edgware. In fact he is chief suspect in over 100 murder cases, including in England in the murder of one of his own leading comrades.

Galloway again calls for Altaf Hussain's British citizenship to be pulled after Karachi killing

George Galloway, in a series of parliamentary questions and a parliamentary motion, has asked the British Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to remove MQM leader Altaf Hussain's British citizenship.

Hussain is currently living in London after successfully applying for citizenship during the tenure of the last Labour government. He says that he fears for his life were he to return to Pakistan.

Galloway asked the government to examine whether the MQM leader should be thrown out of the country after Hussain made a serious of inflammatory broadcasts. However, following the assassination of the vice-president of Imran Khan's party, the PTI, which is blamed on the MQM, Galloway is once again raising Altaf Hussain's status in the British Parliament. Zara Shahid Hussain was shot dead outside her house as Karachi votes in a partial re-run of the Pakistan general election.

Continue reading the main story

The second war on Suffragettes

National chair Yvonne Ridley has written an excellent piece in Counterpunch on Suffragette Emily Wilding Davison who died under the King George V's horse at the 1913 Derby.

You can read it here: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/22/the-second-war-on-suffragettes/

Galloway calls for peaceful removal of Bangladesh 'gangster government'

George Galloway last night called for the peaceful overthrow of the Sheikh Hasina/Awami League government in Bangladesh. Speaking at a huge protest rally in East London, Galloway denounced the massacre of Islamic scholars earlier in the week.

 “Even on the most conservative estimates of the number of people murdered, it exceeds the loss of life in 9/11,” said Galloway.

“This is a game changer as the Americans would say. Bangladesh will never be the same again. This is the beginning of the end of this corrupt, murderous government.” He went on to deny there was now any possibility of free and fair elections in Bangladesh.

“Either they will be fixed by the government or they will be cancelled. That is why the only way we will get the change Bangladesh needs is through people power, a peaceful revolution that will remove this gangster government. The media is now under the almost total control of the Hasina government and in the West there has been an almost total media blackout about the massacre.”

 Galloway added that the British-based Bangladesh TV had boycotted the rally and called on them to do their duty and tell the truth. “I’m against hanging anyone but it’s a fundamental truth in politics that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. There has to be an end of the politics of revenge.”

George also denounced the factory tragedy which has now taken the lives of over a thousand people and urged support for the campaign he launched a week ago to make Western multinationals fully accountable for the working conditions of those in their supply chain.

Galloway to commemorate the Bradford City disaster

George Galloway will join hundreds of mourners today to commemorate those who lost their lives in the Bradford City fire 27 years ago.

Fifty-six people died and at least 265 people were injured. The memorial will take place at Centenary Square at 11am.

The old Valley Parade stadium, the long-established home of Bradford City Football Club, had been noted for its antiquated design and facilities, including the wooden roof of the main stand. Warnings had also been given about a major build-up of litter just below the seats. Following the fire the stadium was totally rebuilt.

George Galloway launches campaign on factory conditions in Bangladesh

George Galloway will launch on Saturday a campaign for western governments to hold accountable multinational companies for the working conditions of their suppliers. The campaign will be launched with Bradford's Bangladeshi community at 1.45 this Saturday at the Shapla Community Centre, Cornwall Street, Bradford.

George wants western multinationals, which produce directly or buy from companies in developing countries, to be penalised severely if they don’t take due precautions to ensure workers are producing in safe conditions. This follows the disaster in Bangladesh where around 400 workers are now known to have died and hundreds more are missing or injured after a nine storey garment factory supplying western multinationals collapsed just outside the capital Dhaka.

Ed Miliband and Me

Secrets are sometimes necessary in politics. So is telling the truth but not the whole truth. What is never acceptable are lies. Especially from the leader of a party still in recovery from a predecessor who may have fatally wounded it by the tower of lies he built along the path which led to a million dead Iraqis and cascading extremism around the world.

Earlier this year the Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband asked me to come and see him in his suite of offices overlooking the River Thames in the Norman Shaw Building in parliament. In fact he asked me again and again. When my diary proved uncomfortably crowded his office tried even harder to make it happen. “Ed is very keen to meet George” says one e-mail.

Galloway launches campaign on factory conditions in Bangladesh

George Galloway today launched a campaign for western governments to penalise multinational companies which produce directly or buy from companies in developing countries if they don’t take due precautions to ensure workers are producing in safe conditions. This follows the disaster in Bangladesh where more than 350 workers are now known to have died in a garment factory just outside Dhaka which was supplying western multinationals.

“This a terrible disaster,” said George Galloway this morning. “It has been caused by political corruption and negligence in Bangladesh and by the relentless drive by western multinationals for cheap sources of clothing. The western multinationals that bought their clothes from this factory owe compensation to the bereaved families and to the injured.

Galloway speaks out against Thatcher funeral hype

Margaret Thatcher Milk Snatcher

Eve of Funeral Public Meeting

Galloway moves to stop Thatcher parliamentary suspension

BRADFORD WEST MP George Galloway will call 'object' on Monday evening in parliament to a government motion cancelling Wednesday's business in the House, including Prime Minister's Questions. The government is intent on clearing business so that ministers and guests can attend Margaret Thatcher's funeral.

By George calling object it will prevent the 'Sittings of the House Motion' by the Leader of the House being put to MPs. The government will then either have to withdraw the motion, which would mean a full session on Wednesday, the date of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's funeral, or it will have to set aside parliamentary time for the motion to be fully debated on Tuesday.

Galloway said: "It really is imperative that the prime minister is questioned, among other things, about his decision to impose a quite unnecessary and expensive early return of parliament which was simply a hideous outpouring of right-wing eulogies and rants doused in crocodile tears. I'm glad to see, that like me, more than a hundred Labour MPs stayed away from the circus."

CURTAINS UP FOR THE ODEON

Bradford city council must seize the unprecedented offer which will secure the future of the Odeon building and the adjoining former police station.

Bradford West MP George Galloway welcomed the news that the Homes and Communities Agency, which owns the Bradford Odeon and the old police station, has announced that it is willing to sell both properties to the council for a pound each and also provide £3.5 million to the council for their preservation and restoration.

Galloway said: "A year ago I made the saving of the Odeon a central plank of my by-election campaign, which saw me win by a landslide. The people of Bradford West expressed at the ballot box the overwhelming feeling of the city as a whole – that the Odeon needed to be saved from demolition and restored to productive use as an icon of Bradford’s past and future."

At the time the building was shrouded in plastic and its future looked hopeless. "The curtains had come down on the Odeon as far as the authorities were concerned. But they've been sent back to think again, not just once but twice. 

"Odeon campaigners who fought tirelessly have won a second historic victory," Galloway continued, "first the successful campaign to stop the demolition and then pressurising the HCA into raising its initial offer, from £100,000 to maintain the building, now to £3.5 million. This is brilliant news and shows that finally the powers that be have finally listened to the overwhelming desire of Bradfordians.

"I hope the council will now take this opportunity to promote the iconic Odeon, inviting ideas for use and investment to help restore Bradford’s beleaguered city centre," Galloway added. "The curtains will never come down on the Odeon."

Galloway comments on Mail on Sunday story

The Bradford West MP George Galloway today described a news story in the Mail on Sunday as, "being almost totally bereft of truth, potentially actionable and clearly motivated by malice against me. I am writing to the Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe today to ask, among other matters, what guidance his force gave the newspaper and whether the publication of the story potentially compromises a live investigation."

Galloway pointed out that his parliamentary computer had not been "seized" as the newspaper alleged and, indeed, he had insisted that it was handed in to the Met police, investigating what he described as a 'dirty tricks' operation against him orchestrated by a member of his staff, Aisha Ali Khan, and a senior detective in the Met's anti-terrorism branch SO15, Afiz Khan. Both Khans have been arrested and are presently on bail on suspicion of data protection offences and also, in his case, of abusing his position as a police officer.

Car insurance, health care and infant mortality in Bradford

Car insurance postcode discrimination 

That this House notes that car insurance rates can differ by more than ten times between people insuring from different postcodes; further notes that these extraordinary disparities in insurance charges can take place even between neighbouring postcodes; further notes these disparities are discriminatory against people on low incomes and particularly people from particular ethnic minorities who are concentrated in particular postcodes; calls on the government to outlaw postcode discrimination and oblige insurers to insure on the basis of the individual not the area as a matter of urgency; and calls on the government to legislate if necessary to ensure insurers are provided with information about individuals applying for car insurance that is relevant to make an insurance assessment but in line with respecting the individual’s right to privacy