Anne Marie Waters

Anne Marie Waters

Anne Marie Walters is the founder and spokesperson of Sharia Watch UK, was briefly a UK Independence Party (UKIP) parliamentary candidate and remained a member in January 2015.

History

Water previously worked for One Law For All which would later issued a statement condemning her.

She was formerly a Labour Party member and in summer 2013 was nearly selected as a parliamentary candidate. After failing to be selected as a Labour candidate she joined UKIP.

In April 2014 she launched the organistion Sharia Watch UK and in May 2014 announced that she would stand as its candidate for Basildon and Billericay but she appears to have been subsequently de-selected, in approximately October 2014.

Activities

Sharia Watch UK

Waters registered the domain name for Sharia Watch UK in April 2014, the same month its launch event took place in the House of Lords, hosted by Baroness Cox, a peer who has previously invited far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders to show his anti-Islam film Fitna in the Lords. Charlie Klendjian of the Lawyers Secular Society also spoke.

Counterjihad connections

Lars Hedegaard

In June 2014, Waters shared a platform in Copenhagen with Lars Hedegaard, the man behind the anti-Islam organisation the International Free Press Society. A video of the event- the launch of a Swedish edition of Hedegaard’s book Muhammad’s Girls: Violence, Murder and Rape in the House of Islam - shows her sitting next to the Dane, who was convicted of hate speech in 2011 after stating that ‘Muslims rape their children’, though he successfully appealed this conviction, on ‘free speech’ grounds, the following year. Chairing the event was Ingrid Carlqvist, a key member of the Swedish counterjihad network. Also on the panel was psychologist Nicolai Sennels of the far-right Danish People’s Party and the video was produced by Dispatch International (DI), a mouthpiece for the counterjihad movement – for which Waters has written extensively – founded by Hedegaard and Carlqvist.

Alan Ayling

Ex-EDL donor and strategist Alan Ayling watching Anne Marie Waters talk at Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park, October 2014

In a series of videos taken in October 2014 at Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park, which show Waters and others delivering diatribes against Islam, former English Defence League financier and strategist Alan Ayling (aka Alan Lake) could be seen in the group that appeared to be supporting her. Waters did not respond to repeated requests to clarify her relationship with Ayling.

University talks

Founder and spokesperson Anne Marie Waters and Charlie Kelndjian of the Lawyers Secular Society were due to speak at the University of West London in November 2014 but the scheduled event was cancelled, after complaints, though the pair later spoke at the University of Manchester.

Views

In an Oxford Union debate in February 2013 she spoke against the motion 'This house believes Islam is a religion of peace'.

Islamophobia as 'feminism'

In her speech at Lars Hedegaard's book launch in June 2014, Waters linked Islam to child abuse, saying (16:08) ‘it’s all linked to Islam’, which she characterised as a dangerous ‘ideology’ being ‘appeased’, adding (17:45): ‘it is exactly the same appeasement that is allowing young girls to be raped in Britain, it’s got nothing to do with race, it’s got to do with the fact that we will not confront the misogyny at the very, very heart of this religion’.

• Sharia Law and Human Rights – Anne Marie Waters at Queen Mary University, personal website, October 2014

Affiliations

• Sharia Watch UK - spokesperson
• UKIP - member and former parliamentary candidate in 2014
• One Law For All - former employee
• Labour Party - former member
• Lawyers Secular Society
• National Secular Society

Contact

• Website http://www.annemariewaters.org/

Resources

• Sharia Watch UK and the Metamorphosis of Anne Marie Waters, Institute of Race Relations, 21 January 2015