Tuesday, July 17th 2001 taken from Datalounge.com

LONDON -- A fatwa, issued earlier this month against the gay Muslim group Al-Fatiha by the British Muslim group Al-Muhajiroun, has been denounced as a form of illegal intimidation by gay civil rights advocates and is being investigated by police, the Rainbow Network reports.

Al-Fatiha issued a statement saying that police were looking into the matter, though they said that apart from the threatening tone of the decree itself, none of the group's members have been threatened personally yet.

"Al-Fatiha has concluded that the statement from Al-Muhajiroun is only an alleged fatwa," a spokesman for the gay group said. "We believe that it was only sent to press in the United Kingdom in reaction to the Al-Fatiha conference that was held in San Francisco and Al-Fatiha's participation in the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade. But whether it is an official fatwa or not, the rhetoric used in the statement was extreme and cause for concern."

The text of the Al-Muhajiroun fatwa read, "The very existence of Al-Fatiha is illegitimate, and the members of this organization are apostates. Never will such an organization be tolerated in Islam, and never will the disease that it calls for be affiliated with a true Islamic society or individual.

"The Islamic ruling for such acts is death," reads the document. "It is a duty of the Muslims to prevent such evil conceptions being voiced in the public or private arena."