Muslim group forces cancellation of debate on sharia....

They wanted men and women to be segregated....

A public debate organised by banned Islamic sect Al Muhajiroun was cancelled today after an angry confrontation broke out over the segregation of men and women.

Management at the meeting's venue said 'fundamentalist thugs' forced the event to be called off after they physically prevented men and women sitting together.

Giles Enders, Chairman of the South Place Ethical Society, which runs Conway Hall in Holborn, London, said scuffles broke out over the group's heavy-handed approach.
Douglas Murray and Anjem Choudary confront each othe

Douglas Murray and Anjem Choudary confront each other after the South Place Ethical Society banned the pracher's group, Al Muhajiroun from the hall

The meeting came as the group's new leader, Anjem Choudary, issued a challenge to the Government to ban the group after it emerged it was reforming.

Al Muhajiroun has sparked controversy after he said he wanted Sharia law in Britain and called 9/11 terrorists as the 'Magnificent 19'.

The group was hoping to hold its first public meeting in five years but Mr Enders said the group had broken the terms for its hire of the hall.

Today's debate, called Sharia Law Versus British Law, was intended to pit Choudary against Douglas Murray, director of right-wing think tank the Centre for Social Cohesion.

Taking to the stage, Mr Enders said: 'A group of thugs at the door have refused to let women in. I'm cancelling this meeting.'

He was cheered by a small group of women sitting in the balcony but was also heckled by many of the 100 or so men in the main hall.

Mr Choudary, who sat on stage during the scuffles and Mr Enders' announcement, then grabbed the microphone and after led chants saying: 'This is a victory for Osama Muslims.'

Police watch as crowds gather outside Conway Hall following the cancellation of today's meeting

But Mr Enders took the microphone back from Mr Choudary and ordered everyone in the hall to leave.

Alexander Hitchens, of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said his group was invited to the debate with Mr Choudary on the understanding that it would be held on neutral ground with no segregation.

He said he was greeted by members of Al Muharjiroun on the door before being barred from entering.

'We were led to believe it would be completely neutral,' he said.

Outside the hall, Mr Choudary criticised British society as 'dirty' and predicted that, within one or two decades, Muslims would be the majority here.

Asked why he was living here, he said: 'We come here to civilise people, get them to come out of the darkness and injustice into the beauty of Islam.'