The New leader of Scotland is of Pakistani origin and a racist known to hunt down whites in Scottish Institutions.
Update: 3-29-23
3-28-23
Scotland’s governing party elected radical Humza Yousaf as its new leader on Monday, making him the first “person of color and the first Muslim” to lead the country of 5.5 million people, celebrated the left-wing media.
Yousaf narrowly defeated rival Kate Forbes after a bruising five-week contest that exposed deep fractures within the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) as it faces an impasse in its quest to take Scotland out of the United Kingdom.
The controversial 37-year-old Glasgow-born son of Muslim Pakistani immigrants is set to be confirmed as first minister during a session of the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh on Tuesday. Yousaf and his family have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and other terrorist-tied organizations. Yousaf has fought to usher in sharia blasphemy in Scotland. Furthermore, he is racist that is known to hunt down whites in Scottish Institutions:
Yousaf, currently Scotland’s health minister, beat two other Scottish lawmakers in a contest to replace First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. She unexpectedly stepped down last month after eight years as leader of the party and Scotland’s semi-autonomous government.
SNP members chose Yousaf over Scottish finance minister Forbes by a margin of 52% to 48% after third-placed candidate Ash Regan was eliminated in a first vote. Turnout among the 72,000 members was 70%.
Yousaf paid tribute to his late grandparents, who emigrated from Punjab to Glasgow more than 60 years ago.
“They couldn’t have imagined, in their wildest dreams, that two generations later, their grandson would one day be Scotland’s first minister,” he said. “We should all take pride in the fact that today we have sent a clear message: that your color of skin, your faith, is not a barrier to leading the country we all call home.”
Yousaf is widely seen as a “continuity Sturgeon” candidate who shares the outgoing leader’s liberal social views.
A formidable leader who led the SNP to a dominant position in Scottish politics, Sturgeon failed in her aim of taking Scotland out of the U.K. and divided the party with a contentious transgender rights law
The three candidates to succeed her shared the goal of independence but differed in their economic and social visions for Scotland.
Forbes, 32, is an evangelical Christian who has been criticized for saying that her faith would have prevented her from voting in favor of allowing same-sex couples to wed had she been a lawmaker when Scotland legalized gay marriage in 2014.
Both Forbes and 49-year-old Regan opposed legislation championed by Sturgeon to make it easier for people in Scotland to change their gender legally.
The gender recognition bill has been hailed as a landmark piece of legislation by transgender rights activists but faced opposition from some SNP members who said it ignored the need to protect single-sex spaces for women, such as domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers.
Yousaf has “promised” to push forward with the bill, passed by the Scottish parliament but blocked by the U.K. government. Meanwhile, Yousaf’s religion and past affiliations show that he does not support the LGBT community.
Terror-tied Humza Yousaf
Critics say Yousaf, who served in several posts in Sturgeon’s government, bears some responsibility for Scotland’s long healthcare waiting times, homelessness problem, and high drug death toll.
Yousaf was formerly the Media spokesperson for terror-tied Islamic Relief Worldwide. As reported by Gatestone, in 1999, Islamic Relief Worldwide received a payment of $50,000 from a Canadian charity that the US Department of the Treasury identified as a “Bin Laden front.” In 2005, the Russian Government accused Islamic Relief of supporting terrorism in Chechnya.
In 2006, the Israeli Government designated Islamic Relief a “terrorist front.” After three weeks’ detention in Israel, the head of Islamic Relief’s operations in Gaza, Ayaz Ali, was deported by Israeli authorities after being accused of funneling money to banned organizations and storing images of swastikas and Osama bin Laden on his computer.
In November 2012, the Swiss Bank UBS closed the account of and blocked all donations to Islamic Relief due to “counter-terror concerns.”
The Global Muslim Brotherhood Report has noted that a considerable number of Islamic Relief officials are also connected to extremist groups:
- Ibrahim El-Zayat, a trustee of Islamic Relief, is a leader in both the European and the German Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist Islamist organization with branches worldwide.
- Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi, the former head of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), was also previously a director of Islamic Relief. FIOE is a leading advocate of jihadist Egyptian scholar, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
- Issam Al-Bashir, a former Director of Islamic Relief, is the former Minister of Religious Affairs in the Sudan and has held many positions associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood.
- Dr. Hani Al-Banna, the co-founder of Islamic Relief Worldwide, was formerly affiliated with Muslim Aid, a London-based Islamic “charity” which was previously a “partner organization” of the Al-Salah Islamic Association. The US Government has officially designated Al Salah a terrorist entity.
The Islamic Relief’s long history of organizing events with extremist speakers is also revealing. In 2009, for example, the charity invited Yusuf Estes, a prominent hate preacher, to speak at nine Islamic Relief events across the UK. In the past, Estes has instructed husbands to beat “disobedient wives.” He has also called for the killing of homosexuals:
“Islam considers homosexuality as a sexual deviation leading to a perverted act which goes against the natural order Allah intended for mankind. … In order to maintain the purity of the Muslim society, most Muslim scholars have ruled that the punishment for this act should be the same as for zina (i.e. one hundred whiplashes for the man who has never married, and death by stoning for the married man). Some have even ruled that it should be death for both partners, because the Prophet … said: “Kill the doer and the one to whom it was done.’”
Humza Yousaf’s Muslim Brotherhood-tied cousin
In 2010, opposition parties called for an independent investigation into the Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF), which is headed by Humza Yousaf’s cousin and a fellow SNP parliamentary candidate, Osama Saeed. The SIF was handed more than £400,000 by SNP ministers.
Osama Saeed was previously the spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain, which is the leading voice of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain. In 2005, Saeed called for the re-establishment of the caliphate, an Islamist aspiration to unite the Islamic World under one Islamic theocracy. In 2006, Saeed voiced praise for the late Al Qaeda leader, Anwar Al-Awlaki, writing:
“Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki was originally hounded in the US because two of the 9/11 bombers happened to pray at his mosque. Many of my Muslim readers will either know him personally or have heard his lectures. He preached nothing but peace, and I pray he will be able to do so again.”
In 2009, the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think-tank, issued an ‘alert’ which stated that Saeed’s Scottish Islamic Foundation, since its foundation, had acted to provide a platform for extremist Islamists and advocated Muslim Brotherhood-style policies. The Quilliam Foundation further noted that, in 2008, the Scottish Islamic Foundation had arranged for Mohammed Sawalha, a fugitive Hamas commander, to meet with the Scottish culture minister, Linda Fabiani.
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The Troubling Islamist Connections of Scotland’s Next Leader
Humza Yousaf, a senior Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who brought a fugitive Hamas commander to meet with Scottish ministers, worked for a radical charity condemned by Western governments for its antisemitism and terror ties, and advocated for “progressive political Islam” is the front-runner to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader, and become Scotland’s new First Minister.
Yousaf first came to the public’s attention in the late 2000s while serving as an aide to former SNP leader Alex Salmond and other senior party leaders. At this time, Yousaf was also running the Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF) along with his cousin, Osama Saeed.
In 2010, the Quilliam Foundation, a (now-defunct) Muslim-run counter-extremism organization, prepared a list for British security officials warning that SIF was an “entry-level” Islamist group that contributed to the threat of radicalization and extremism within British Islam.
Parliamentary questions have revealed that Yousaf and Saeed, through SIF, brought extremists to meet with senior Scottish politicians. In 2008, Yousaf organized a meeting with Scotland’s Minister for Europe, External Affairs, and Culture, featuring three prominent Islamists: Mohammed Sawalha, Anas Altikriti, and Ismail Patel.
Two years earlier, Sawalha had been named by the BBC as a fugitive Hamas commander; and indeed, Sawalha later became a member of the terror group’s political bureau. As for Anas Altikriti, he has long served as a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in both the UK and Iraq, and in 2006 he reportedly praised Iraqi “resistance” against British and American troops in Iraq.
Ismail Patel, meanwhile, is another supporter of Hamas, and had already, at the time of the meeting, established a reputation for hardline Islamism, including advocating the killing of adulterers and punishment for “free mixing of men and women.”
Yousaf’s involvement with Scottish nationalism served the interests of SIF. In 2010, opposition parties called for an investigation into the SNP’s decision to give £400,000 of Scottish taxpayers’ money to the Islamist-run group.
Other Islamist groups continued to benefit from Yousaf’s influence over the SNP government. In 2013, Yousaf, now elected and serving as Scotland’s Minister for External Affairs and International Development, announced a £398,000 grant to Islamic Relief, one of the largest Islamist charities in the world, established by figures from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Critics claimed more cronyism was likely at work. Before his election to the Scottish parliament, Islamic Relief had appointed Humza Yousaf as its “Media Spokesperson.”
European and Islamic governments have denounced Islamic Relief because of the anti-Semitism of its officials and its long history of close ties to Hamas and other designated terrorist groups. In 2020, the State Department warned about the “blatant and horrifying anti-Semitism and glorification of violence exhibited at the most senior levels of Islamic Relief Worldwide.”
Yousaf’s cousin and SIF colleague, Osama Saeed, is himself a notorious Islamist operative who also once stood as SNP parliamentary candidate. In 2005, he called for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. And in 2006, Saeed voiced praise for Al Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki, writing: “Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki was originally hounded in the US because two of the 9/11 bombers happened to pray at his mosque. … He preached nothing but peace, and I pray he will be able to do so again.” Al-Awlaki later became the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula before his death in a 2011 drone strike.
The extent to which Yousaf shares his cousin’s extremism is unclear, although the two remain close.
In 2010, Saeed left Scotland for Qatar to work for Al Jazeera, the Qatari media channel partly staffed by Muslim Brotherhood operatives. During his time as an elected SNP official, Yousaf has been an enthusiastic supporter of Al Jazeera and has also boasted of his deals with the Qatari regime.
In 2011, as policymakers, moderate Muslims, and counter-extremism analysts expressed fears of an impending Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, Yousaf tweeted: “All this talk coming from the US+UK abt an ‘Islamist’ Gov’t taking control is smokescreens and mirrors 2protect their own interests.”
This sort of language from Yousaf, however, has died down in recent years. However, critics have raised alarm at some of the legislation Yousaf has championed. In 2020, for instance, journalists and free expression organizations expressed alarm at the SNP’s Hate Crime Bill, introduced by Yousaf in his role as Justice Secretary. Critics warned the bill, which made it illegal to “stir up religious hatred” regardless of intent, is simply a revived criminalization of blasphemy.
Yousaf should clarify his relationship with the hardline Islamists of his and SIF’s past and explain what exactly he means by his support for “progressive political Islam.”
His campaign has not yet returned FWI’s requests for comment.
At the very least, if Yousaf is not an Islamist, he is a fellow traveler of extremists. And indeed – as with many nationalist groups – the SNP has a history of embracing Islamist allies.
In 2005, Azzam Tamimi, the British “special envoy” for the terrorist group Hamas, stated, “We have been impressed by the warm and welcoming attitude of the SNP.”
Meanwhile, Left-leaning media in Britain have critically noted the SNP’s partnership with various British Islamist groups, and the “great lengths” to which SNP leaders such as Nicola Sturgeon have gone “to deny the argument that religious ideology might be motivating Muslims to carry out acts of mass terror.”
This embrace of Islamism does not appear merely to be the product of SNP’s ideas about courting the Muslim vote. Foreign Islamist regimes also attract the SNP’s attention. SNP leaders have visited Iran, diverted public funds into the pockets of Iranian regime proxies, and taken part in events at radical Shia mosques in the UK alongside personal representatives of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Whether or not the SNP benefits from such partnerships is unclear. Although in 2019, Potkin Azamehr noted for the Middle East Forum that Iranian disinformation efforts appeared to be particularly focused on advancing Scottish independence ideas and advancing support for the SNP.
In 2009, the Quilliam Foundation published a warning that, given the news of Yousaf’s cousin, Osama Saeed, standing as an SNP parliamentary candidate, Britain risked electing its first “openly Islamist MP.” Almost fourteen years later, is King Charles about to appoint the United Kingdom’s first Islamist head of government?