Tolerance on religious speeches

Recently, I read a report on the activities of two Muslim clerics in Britain. One, an Egyptian-born man, Abu Hamza e-Mazri, who was granted British citizenship twenty years ago, is on record as making such statements as "September 11 was a visitation of God upon America", while his mosque was revealed as being a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda cadres.

Another, Abdullah el-Faisal, was reportedly accused of soliciting murder in speeches that encouraged his supporters to kill Jews, Hindus and Westerners.

In that same report, it was made clear that the British limits of tolerance have been reached, and laws were being implemented to lock these people up. They cannot be kicked out, because they are not accepted in their own countries and are therefore subject to clemency, as they would likely face imprisonment and torture at home.

I cannot imagine if the situation were reversed, for example, an inflammatory British Christian preacher being treated with such tolerance, and I sincerely hope that Britain will cease forthwith from allowing such abuse of its deeply based freedoms.

Islam has within it the seeds of its own destruction unless those ordinary people who profess it finally rise up and disown such "bastardizers" of a great faith, wherever they seek to spread their poison.

CHRISTOPHER R. MCRAE, Jakarta