U.K.’s Home Secretary Amber Rudd has branded the travel ban imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump as a “potential propaganda opportunity” for the Islamic State group (ISIS). Her comments came as Trump faced worldwide criticism over his decision to place a temporary ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries — Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Rudd slammed Trump saying that his move was “divisive” and “wrong.” Appearing before the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Rudd agreed that most attacks in the U.S., Britain and Europe had been carried out by domestic terrorists in recent years, but the latest move could be used by ISIS to radicalize people.
ISIS would “use any opportunity they can to make difficulties, to create the environment they want to radicalize people, to bring them over to their side. So it is a propaganda opportunity for them, potentially,” Rudd reportedly said. “I think the important thing is for this government to state that we disagree with the ban and we have said that it is divisive, it is wrong. I will continue to say that.”
At the committee, Rudd also questioned the basis on which these countries were subjected to the three-month travel ban. She said that the “sources of terrorism were not to be found in the places where the president was said to be looking for them.”
After Rudd was criticized for not voicing out her concerns sooner, she defended herself saying that she had made clear in a phone call to the head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, John Youwin Kelly, that she disagreed with the travel ban. Rudd said that she informed Kelly about the “difficulties and the response that was taking place in London and across the country.”
On Monday, several protests against Trump were carried out in the U.K. after Prime Minister Theresa May invited the U.S. president for a state visit to Britain. A petition calling for the invitation to be revoked has gained more than 1.7 million signatures.
However, Rudd declined to voice her opinion to the criticism of the state visit invitation.
“I think we can hold two things in our head, which is to say to the president of the US, ‘We find this policy divisive and wrong’, and still to respect the president of the United States and want to engage with him in the way we would engage with world leaders to try to promote UK’s interests,” Rudd reportedly said, when Labor MP Chuka Umunna challenged her saying: “What message do you think it gives this country’s three million Muslims when you invite a known Islamophobe and honor him in the way you intend to?”
After thousands of protesters raged across the U.K. on Friday upon hearing news of Trump’s travel ban, Lord Peter Ricketts said that he would prefer Trump’s scheduled meeting with English lawmakers and diplomats to be downgraded from an official state visit so that Queen Elizabeth II could avoid the controversy of meeting with him amid the backlash in Britain.
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