Liberty (advocacy group) activist group, and Paedophile Action for Liberation became affiliated to the pressure group. Shami Chakrabarti, the former director of Liberty, issued an apology about the links between the NCCL and the PIE. In December 2013, she said: "It is a source of continuing disgust and horror that even the NCCL had to expel paedophiles from its ranks in 1983 after infiltration at some point in the 70s." Gay rights and censorship NCCL acted for the owners of "Gay's the Word" bookshop, whose stock was confiscated by Customs officers in 1984. All charges were dropped in 1986. Miners' strike During the
Abu Anas al-Shami late 1990s, the Jordanian officials shut down an Islamic center that al-Shami had established in Amman on the grounds that it was promoting an extreme interpretation of Islam. In 2003, al-Shami joined al-Tawheed wal-Jihad leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in north-eastern Iraq. He was appointed to the advisory council of the group and soon became Zarqawi's second in command. He was both spiritual advisor to the group and directed many of its attacks and battles against American and Iraqi forces. In a letter he wrote that his 300 "mujaheddin" had fought-off over 2,000 U.S. Marines in the First Battle of Fallujah.