This is a guest post by Al-Qanaas Al-Masri
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The Scottish Islamic Foundation, a hard-line Islamist outfit run by two former Muslim Association of Britain spokesmen, was today taken to task by the Scottish Herald newspaper over its half-baked plans to hold a conference in the Gulf to promote Scotland.
The article quoted Omar Shaikh, a board member of the Islamic Finance Council UK, who warned that the SIF’s planned event threatened to be “shallow, incoherent and patchy” and Frank McAverty, a Labour MSP, who said that “the SIF has to demonstrate its independence from key figures associated with the SNP.” He added “I hope this expo will not be used for partisan politicking to promote the SNP, its leadership and candidates.”
The Scottish Islamic Foundation responded by attacking McAverty for being partisan, accusing him of trying to manufacture a “party political knockabout” and adding that “the SIF has no view, and can have no view, on the various parties”.
Unusually, the SIF’s statement on McAverty was signed by Asif Ahmed, the low-profile SIF’s chairman, rather than the group’s usual public face, Osama Saeed. This is probably for the best: Osama Saeed, a former researcher for SNP leader Alex Salmond, also happens to the SNP’s candidate for Glasgow Central in the next general election.
2 Comments
I don’t really get the point of this article. It is as if it was some sort of secret that Osama Saeed stands for the SNP, when it is anything but. Is it worth pointing out that his main opponent is Mohammed Sarwars’ son, which is an interesting bit of nepotism. There really ought to be a rule in all political parties that no seat is inheritable.
No-one responds, neither the owner of this site nor the author of this piece of dreck. How astonishing!