Press Release
The Despicable Defamatory Attack on Hizb ut Tahrir Manifests the Intellectual Corruption of the Parties Concerned

For almost a week, Hizb ut Tahrir has been under non-stop attack with all sorts of despicable slander by the media following the press conferences made by the Johor Islamic Religious Affairs Committee Chairman (on 30/09/2020) and the Chief Police of Johor (on 01/10/2020). The Johor Islamic Religious Affairs Committee Chairman and the Chief Police of Johor was talking about a fatwa on Hizb ut Tahrir, issued by the Johor Fatwa Committee that had been gazetted on 15/07/2019; a fatwa that is worse than the same fatwa gazetted by Selangor and Sabah. The fatwa among others states that Hizb ut Tahrir allows the kissing of foreign (non-mahram) women, that watching pornographic film is permissible and that Hizb ut Tahrir is threatening national harmony and security. The Chief Police of Johor, in his press conference added that Hizb ut Tahrir had labelled the Malaysian government as Kafir that must be toppled by force.

Several media sources, be it television or newspapers, reported the press conferences (and the fatwa) and a number of them seem to be taking advantage of the situation by adding other defamations which are not stated in the fatwa, accusing Hizb ut Tahrir as saying that the prayer and zakat are not obligatory until the Khilafah is established, that Muslims other than Hizb ut Tahrir are deviant, that al-Qada’ wal Qadar cannot be believed and so on. The situation worsens when other chiefs of police, including the Chief Police of Malaysia himself, have been dragged by the media to answer questions about Hizb ut Tahrir who has been accused as having an article in its draft constitution forcing all Muslim sons who have attained 15 years of age to attend weaponry training.

The spokesperson of Hizb ut Tahrir / Malaysia has held two online press conferences answering some of those defamation in the fatwa, by the Chief Police of Johor and also by the media. In addition to it, we wish to reiterate, and stress as follows:

1. The media must be professional and just in reporting. They should have also reported the full answers from the Spokesperson of Hizb ut Tahrir / Malaysia and not merely reporting one side of the story;

2. Despite perceiving that the Johor Fatwa Committee will not retract the defamatory fatwa, we still demand for the said fatwa to be retracted, for their own good, especially in the Hereafter;

3. Hizb ut Tahrir is an international Islamic political party that has been working within this Ummah since 1953 and every sound person knows that the work of Hizb ut Tahrir is political and intellectual and Hizb ut Tahrir aspires to unite this Ummah under the Khilafah and Hizb ut Tahrir never engages in violence in any of its activities, in contradiction to what has been stated in the fatwa and the aforementioned press conference.

We wish to strongly and unequivocally express to the Johor Fatwa Committee, as we had in our answers to the Selangor Fatwa Committee and the Sabah Fatwa Council, that the fatwa against Hizb ut Tahrir is a ‘political fatwa’ to tarnish the image of Hizb ut Tahrir and to halt the Da’wah of Hizb ut Tahrir within this Ummah. The agenda to frame Hizb ut Tahrir in a bad light in order to stop the Da’wah carried out by Hizb ut Tahrir is typical of the Western Kuffar political agenda, since they know very well that the Khilafah that Hizb ut Tahrir is working on, will soon be established and will end their deviant thoughts, hegemony and influence on this Ummah. Failing to face Hizb ut Tahrir ideologically, they turn to wicked plots, defamation and inventing stories about Hizb ut Tahrir. Their agents among the Muslim rulers then follow suit, with the hope that the Ummah will turn away from Hizb ut Tahrir and the idea of Khilafah.

All the invented stories and despicable defamatory attacks against Hizb ut Tahrir which are taking place around the world manifest the intellectual corruption of the attackers in facing the ideas and Da’wah of Hizb ut Tahrir. They hope that with all their wicked plots, defamation and accusation, Hizb ut Tahrir will halt its Da’wah, as what the Kuffar Quraish had hoped and did to Rasulullah (saw). But they forgot one fact...that Da’wah in the right path can never be stopped, instead, it will continue to grow more than they can ever imagine, until Allah (swt) grants His victory to its carriers.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Malaysia