Jonathan Hall has warned of extremist views becoming normalised (Image: Getty)
Pro-Palestine protesters publicly calling for the deaths of Jews have contributed to them being targeted for murder, the Government’s terrorism tsar has warned.
Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said marchers spouting extremist views should be arrested for “stirring up racial hatred”.
He compared the current climate to that of Abu Hamza’s calls for “jihad and martyrdom outside Finsbury Park Mosque”, warning that it could lead to an increase in terror attacks.
He told a Policy Exchange event: “The current targeting of Jews for murder coincides with two years-worth of public calls for death, if those calls are read literally.
“The parallel with Abu Hamza’s calls for jihad and martyrdom outside Finsbury Park Mosque over two decades ago is chilling.
“You will remember that Abu Hamza, the so-called hook-handed cleric and former imam of that mosque, preached that it was acceptable to kill non-Muslims (Kafirs) and necessary to go after the blood of Jews.
“His public words should have been understood much sooner as a genuine call to deadly action.
“As we speak Lord Ken Macdonald is carrying out a review on public order and hate crime legislation.
“For my part, I think the offence of stirring up racial hatred, including on grounds of citizenship or nationality, is a vital precursor offence to deal with some of the public hatred we have seen on our streets before it leads to violence or even terrorist violence.”
Mr Hall, speaking to the prominent Westminster think-tank, said protests in London Liverpool Street station hours after the Heaton Park terrorist attack, revealed some demonstrators were willing to “normalise” deaths in the UK.
And the lawyer warned this poses a new risk to security and police chiefs.
He said: “It sometimes seems to me that it is not so much extremism as normalisation that we have to fear. If sectarian calls to violence are normalized, then the risk to national security is too great and the first precautionary principle of national security comes into play.
“The risk of allowing the public sphere to be infected by sectarian calls for violence is palpable.
“It is well understood from our own history that domestic and international terrorism have been inspired by mere words, as the cases of Abu Hamza, and Anjem Chaudary and Al Muhajiroun clearly show.
“It will be recalled that Al Muhajiroun, notoriously in their 2010 Remembrance Day protest, called for British soldiers to burn in hell.
“They were seeking to move the dial about the acceptability of violence, and in too many cases their rhetoric succeeded.”