Griffin (C) surrounded by supporters as he speaks to the media after being released on bail

LONDON, December 15 (Islamonline.net & News Agencies) – British Muslims warmly 
welcomed Tuesday, December 14, the arrest of the leader of the extremist British National Party (BNP), saying the move is long overdue.

Hoping that the arrest of Nick Griffin will lead eventually to a ban on the BNP altogether, British Muslims hoped that police would indict the anti-minorities  politician on his blatant slurs against Islam, Reuters news agency reported.

“The BNP has been trying to develop a more polished image and a more sophisticated discourse but the BBC documentary showed that behind that facade, the ugly reality is still the same,” Spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) Inayat Bunglawala told Reuters.

Griffin, 45, was detained and then released on bail on Tuesday, December 14, by West Yorkshire Police on hatred incitement charges as part of an investigation into the BBC documentary Secret Agent, which was broadcast in July.

The program included footage of Griffin giving a speech in the northern town of Keighley in which he described Islam as “wicked, vicious faith has expanded through a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago until it's now sweeping country after country.”

The same documentary, watched by some four million viewers, shows another BNP member expressing a wish to blow up mosques with a rocket launcher and machine-gun worshippers with “about a million bullets.”

It drew ire and strong condemnation from political parties and the Muslim community leaders.

Earlier in the month, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that Islam's tenets were “frequently distorted and taken out of context,” which helped make up the term “Islamophobia.”

“Extremely Important”

“There is no place in British society for the bigots of the BNP,” Shadjareh said

Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, described the move as “extremely important.”

“There is no place in British society for the bigots of the BNP,” he said.

Griffin arrest is not the first in the party ranks and it seems would not be the last.

Two days ago, the 70-year-old founder and chairman of the party John Tyndall was also held and then released on bail following a brief interrogation.

“This is the 10th person to be arrested as part of the overall inquiry launched following the broadcast of The Secret Agent program on Thursday July 15,” a spokesman for the British police told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Sunday, December 12.

Last July, Barclays, Britain's third-biggest bank, closed the BNP’s accounts thanks to growing influence of “lobby-minded” British Muslims and a government-backed campaign against racial hatred.

Britain has already unveiled plans to put forward a legislation criminalizing incitement of religious hatred.

The government’s move is seen as part of an intensive public relations campaign to improve its relations with the Muslim community, especially after the Muslim support for their traditional Labour party had halved.

In January, the MCB lodged a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and the BBC, urging robust disciplinary action against columnist and presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk.

Thanks to an immediate Muslim action, the BBC suspended the presenter's morning show pending an investigation, while Kilroy-Silk offered an apology over describing Arabs as “suicide bombers, limb amputators, and women repressors.”