SHOP OF HORRORS Amazon slammed for ‘giving assistance to terrorists’ by selling extremist jihadi books and anti-semitic material – as well as a bomb-making guide
One book - a novel by Osama Bin Laden named The Islamic Millennium - is being sold on the wildly popular site alongside other jihadi books
AMAZON has come under fire by MPs after the online bookstore was caught selling bomb-making manuals and terrorist recruitment material.
Yvette Cooper, chair of the Commons' powerful home affairs committee, tonight said there was no excuse for the firm not to police its own content.
The Labour MP told The Sun: "Amazon has a responsibility to make sure it isn’t selling illegal, terrorist material. As one of the richest companies in the world it should be capable of abiding by the law."
The backlash comes after it was revealed a novel by Osama Bin Laden is being sold on the wildly popular site alongside other jihadi books.
Incredibly, the books, which can be purchased in hardcopy or on Kindle instant download around the world, are on offer by the online retailer via third-party sellers despite being banned in UK prisons.
A police spokeswoman said: "The Met Police Counter Terrorism Command investigates offences including the dissemination of terrorist material and encouragement of terrorism.
"The command houses the national Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit – a team dedicated to assessing and investigating suspected terrorist material online with a view to seeking its removal and identifying those responsible for publishing it.
"Anyone who believes they have identified extremist or terrorist material online is urged to report it to police via the secure reporting form at www.gov.uk/act."
MP John Mann told MailOnline: "This is Amazon giving assistance to terrorists and putting lives at risk.
"We've just had the anniversary of the Manchester bombing. They need to be held to account.
"Amazon is allowing terror material to circulate. Free speech arguments don't apply when it comes to terrorists trying to recruit. There must be a full police investigation into Amazon."
Books and films being sold on the site include:
- The anti-Semitic book The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
- Explosives manual The Anarchist Cookbook
- Jud Suss, a 1940 Nazi film commissioned by Josef Goebbels
- Towards Understanding Islam, a text banned in UK prisons which has influenced ISIS
- The Islamic Millennium, a book penned by Osama Bin Laden
The founder of charity Tell Mama, Fiyaz Mughal OBE, said: "Imagine a troubled Muslim kid in Manchester or Bradford downloading this stuff on his Kindle. Imagine the influence it will have.
"Amazon is effectively peddling hate. You wouldn't see this stuff in bookshops.
"How can we be seeing hardened Al Qaeda and ISIS rhetoric on the world's biggest online book retailer?"
A Home Office spokesman said: "It is an offence for a person to disseminate a terrorist publication with the intention that it will encourage or assist terrorism, or if they are reckless as to whether it will do so.
"It is for the police to investigate suspected offences in individual cases, and for the independent Crown Prosecution Service to make decisions about prosecutions."
Amazon declined to comment.
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