Extra security for Girlband over X Factor charity song
The 12 finalists on The X Factor, including Girlband, will on Saturday perform a version of Mariah Carey's Hero. The song will be released next week to raise money for the Help for Heroes campaign, which supports injured soldiers from current conflicts in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
But according to reports today a Muslim preacher called Omar Bakri, who has previously praised those involved in the 9/11 attacks in America, has called The X Factor show anti-Muslim.
In a recording on his website he was said to have claimed supporting the Help for Heroes as having "dangerous implications".
It is understood anti-terror police have now been in talks with X Factor producers to tighten security at Fountain Studios in Wembley, North London, where the show is filmed.
Girlband - made up of Marisa Billitteri, 20, from Kingswood, Phoebe and Tita Lau, 20 and 18, from Whitehall and Layla Manoochehri, 22, rom Birmingham, - were voted off the show last Saturday but are taking part in the single.
Phil Cooper, from Kingswood, whose son Jamie was injured in Iraq when a mortar bomb hit his base, said: "They are not being anti-Muslim. All they are doing is supporting their troops - they are British be they Christian, Catholic or Muslim, it doesn't matter.
"Help For Heroes is a worthy cause and all the singers from X Factor were visiting the injured soldiers at Headley Court yesterday."
Farooq Siddique of the Bristol Cultural Muslim Society, said: "He [Omar Bakri] was on the margins when he was in this country and since he has left he has lost the plot.
"He has got enough problems with his own family to be worrying about what Muslims in Britain are wearing or not wearing, or the implications, or the Fatwa hints. I do not know what planet he is on and I'm just glad he's not in Britain."
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We are aware of this recording and it will be assessed to see if any offences have been committed."
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