London Mayoral Candidate Shadiq Khan’s Background Raises Concerns

On May 5, 2016, Londoners will cast their votes for the next Mayor of London as current Mayor Boris Johnson ends his eight-year term. The projected favorite to win the election is Shadiq Khan representing the Labor Party and has been involved in British politics for the past decade. While Khan’s political qualifications may be strong enough to be mayor his personal affiliations with Islamist imams, defending 9/11 terrorists, and being supported by noted anti-Semites has raised serious questions about his agenda and suitability.

Khan has been embroiled in a  political campaign against Zac Goldsmith, the son of billionaire Sir James Goldsmith. Goldsmith’s campaign has emphasized Khan’s connections to Islamists, and linked him to a growing Labor Party scandal of numerous Labor members being exposed for anti-Semitism.

The Labor Party has accused Goldsmith of running a campaign based on Islamophobia because he is behind in the polls.

In 2001, Khan was the attorney for the Nation of Islam and its founder  anti-Semite and racist Louis Farrakhan in a successful bid to overturn a 15-year ban the U.K. put on him for his racist and hateful ideology.  While Khan admits he represented “unsavory people” as a human rights lawyer he also admitted “even the worst people deserve legal representation.”

Between 2005-2006 Khan visited Babar Ahmad who pled guilty to terrorism charges of conspiracy and providing material support for the Taliban. Kahn campaigned for the repatriation of U.K. Guantanamo detainee Shaker Aamer who was released and returned to the U.K. in November 2015. In addition, Khan was associated with the advocacy group CAGE, which has been linked to terrorists, who called Islamic State (IS) executioner Mohammed Emwazi AKA Jihadi John,  a “beautiful young man.”

Khan was also linked to being at a sex-segregated political meeting entitled “Palestine-The Suffering Still Goes On” with five jihadist leaders that made women use a separate entrance. The leaders were linked from supporting terrorists groups, condoned violence against Israel and British forces, women should be subservient to men, and claimed homosexuality was a sin and homosexuals should be stoned to death.

Khan’s defense of Muslims over terrorism has also led many Londoners to question where his loyalties lie. After the 7/7 London bombings he said it was U.K. foreign policy that made the country a target for terrorists. He was a legal defense consultant of 9/11 terrorist Zacharias Moussaoui, wrote a chapter in a book called “Actions Against the Police” in how to sue for racism, and shared a stage with Suliman Gani, a South London jihadist imam, who called for women to be subservient to men and for the creation of an Islamic caliphate. Khan has also refused to answer questions in regard to women wearing their hijab when interacting with public service providers.

Some have compared Khan to Luftur Rahman, the former Mayor of Tower Hamlets, a London Borough known for it’s high Muslim population. Rahman had close ties to the Islamic Forum of Europe, an Islamist group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami. IFE has openly supported a Sharia law based Islamic state.

Rahman was eventually found guilty of engaging in corrupt and illegal practices, and covering them up by accusing opponents and journalists of “islamophobia.”

Nearly one-third of all Londoners are suspicious of having a Muslim mayor, a distrust that seems to come at least in part from the history of other British Muslim politicians being elected only to be exposed for radical ties, including Rahman, Humza Yousef, Shabana Mahmood, and Sayeeda Warsi.

Given current polls, Khan is projected to win.