Shakil Chapra, better known by his kunya Abu Haleema, is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

. In 2014, he had his passport seized by the British authorities to prevent him leaving the country. In 2015, he was arrested and released on bail. According to the ''London Evening Standard'', he is an associate of

Anjem Choudary Anjem Choudary (, aka Abu Luqman; born 18 January 1967) is a British Islamist who has been described as "the face" of militant Islamism or the "best known" Islamic extremist in Britain. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2024 after being ...

Background

Abu Haleema was born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

i immigrants and grew up in South Kilburn.''The Jihadis Next Door'',

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

, 19 January 2016 He works part-time as a bus driver. His name, Abu Haleema (أبو حليمة), means Father of Haleema. Haleema is the name of his daughter.

Passport seized

In April 2014, Abu Haleema's home in London was raided by the police, who seized his passport and left a letter from the

Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

explaining that they believed that Haleema intended to travel to Syria to engage in terrorism-related activities. Haleema denied the claim, saying: "They believe I'm involved in terrorism-related activity, which is not true, and that I may have been thinking of going to Syria to fight, which is completely not true". In January 2015, Abu Haleema was one of around 400 people who had their

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

accounts closed, reportedly on the orders of the British security services and the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

(CIA).

Arrest

In April 2015, Abu Haleema was arrested in London by officers from the Metropolitan Police's

Counter Terrorism Command Counter Terrorism Command (CTC) or SO15 is a Specialist Operations branch within London's Metropolitan Police Service. The Counter Terrorism Command was established as a result of the merging of the Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) and Special Br ...

on suspicion of "encouragement of terrorism contrary to Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006".Radical London preacher Abu Haleema banned from promoting his views online.
Martin Bentham & Colin Cortbus, ''

London Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free of charge in London, England. It is print ...

'', 26 May 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2015. Haleema was later released on

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Court bail may be offered to secure the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when ...

on condition that he did not use

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

to promote his views. Abu Haleema was arrested in November 2020 for disseminating Terrorism section 2 Tact. On 2nd July 2021 he was convicted of that offense in Kingston Crown Court by Judge Lodder and sentenced to Two and a half years in Prison and one year extended License

Activism

Abu Haleema is active in social media such as

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

and

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

which he uses to spread his views. In January 2016, ''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuous ...

'' reported that Abu Haleema was attempting to build a support base in Sydney and Melbourne by criticizing moderate Muslim figures in Australia.British extremist Abu Haleema turns to Australia.
Rachel Olding, ''The Sydney Morning Herald New South Wales'', 21 January 2016. Retrieved 18 March 2016.

References

External links

Abu Haleema - Hope Not Hate

Padraig Reidy: We cannot choose which free speech we will defend and which we will not.
Living people English people of Pakistani descent English Islamists British Muslim activists Bus drivers People from Kilburn, London 1973 births {{islam-bio-stub