JI quoted Article 45 of the Constitution by which powers of President of the state enable granting pardon to anybody. “The President shall to grant, reprieve and respite and to remit, suspend any sentence pass by any court, tribunal or authority,” the article reads. Generally, a mercy petition is forwarded to the Presidency in such cases like Qadri, said a retired judge of the Supreme Court who did not want to be named. It is pertinent to mention here that Salmaan Taseer had initiated a similar process seeking the pardon of blasphemy law convict Asia bibi whom he believed had been hard done. Qadri, inflamed by this act and other statements of Taseer against the blasphemy law, proceeded to execute Taseer.

“Qadri has been awarded death sentence under section 7 of the Anti Terrorism Act which is non-compoundable, even the legal heirs compound his offence,” he said and added, “It’s also not possible in the law under section 3/2 (kesaf & diat),” The JI Shura noted.

The government, JI leadership demanded, should categorically announce, the Blasphemy law would not be changed. Europe and the US should also be asked to stop criticising this law because it’s Pakistan’s internal matter, it added.

Since Qadri confessed to killing Taseer, he has enjoyed celebrity status to the point of canonisation. Take a look at this sickening video made for Qadri, replete with jihadi nasheeds (hymns) celebrating his peity, his heroism and his act of jihadi murder.

Jamaat-e-Islam have a long history of enjoying impunity for their barbaric crimes against humanity in South Asia. They have largely managed to do so because of the deplorable state of Rule of Law in the region. Barbarism begins and ends with the Jamaat-e-Islam and they continue to hold Pakistan’s ethics to ransom 60 years after they were created by Maududi.

Miller opens the letter with some boilerplate text about being firmly opposed to “the infiltration of activist groups by the forces of the state, corporations and the private security industry”:

Spinwatch has – from the very beginning in 2004 – been involved in investigating the infiltration of activist groups by the forces of the state, corporations and the private security industry.  One of the earliest cases we examined was the infiltration of London Greenpeace, with which you have reportedly been associated. Since then we have done extended work on the infiltration of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (The Threat Response Spy Files) and most recently on the 2010/11 case of police spy Mark Kennedy. We have done this work in close collaboration with the activists who have been infiltrated, destabilized and betrayed. Spinwatch stands in solidarity with the infiltrated.

[...]

Consequently, we think that you need to make a public statement confirming or denying the specific allegations so far made public.  In addition, if any of the allegations are true, you need to give an account of what you now think of your previous activities.  We repeat: In our view your current activities and your alleged past activities are not compatible.  If you now disavow any previous activities, you should also publically apologise to the activists who you allegedly betrayed.

But as you know, Bob Lambert has already confirmed that he was a member of the Special Branch when he was both ‘spy team leader’ and was himself involved as police spy when he personally inflitrated various left-wing groups including London Greenpeace. Have these salient facts passed over Miller’s head? Here, for Miller’s edification, is Lambert admitting as much on the pages of the Guardian:

Nor would I want to deny that the Met’s special branch undercover policing existed, or that it played a key role in countering political violence over a long period. Some of the bravest police officers I ever had the privilege to work with were undercover. Their work helped mount successful criminal prosecutions against groups and individuals engaged in a range of violent and threatening activities. And it is worth noting that the serious threats of violence many covert police officers face do not end with their operational deployments.

The undercover aspect of special branch work has been well reported byPeter Taylor in his groundbreaking BBC documentaries. What strikes me is the extent to which they record a shift away from counter-subversion in the 1970s and towards countering political violence and intimidation.

And yet, in spite of SpinWatch’s so-called credentials of opposition to police infiltration tactics, Miller is unusually keen to accept Lambert’s “apology” prima facie:

As part of my cover story so as to gain the necessary credibility to become involved in serious crime, I first built a reputation as a committed member of London Greenpeace, a peaceful campaigning group.

I apologise unreservedly for the deception I therefore practiced on law abiding members of London Greenpeace.

I also apologise unreservedly for forming false friendships with law abiding ctizens and in particular forming a long term relationship with [Name of person removed] who had every reason to think I was a committed animal rights activist and a genuine London Greenpeace campaigner.

I am grateful to Spinwatch for giving me an opportunity to apologise and also to begin a process on conflict resolution in this difficult and sensitive arena.

This will not be easy for any of us but as a result of the recent work I have undertaken with Spinwatch in defence of Muslim organisations, I am confident we can make progress.

So, there you go, SpinWatch seems to be perfectly willing to relax its principles on opposing police spying and Lobby groups in the case of Lambert. But why?

You only have to look at the East London Mosque website to find the answer. It’s an advertisement for an evening at East London Mosque for a 3-way book launch by these people. No prizes for guessing who the protagonists are:

Prof. David Miller
Professor of Sociology in the School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Strathclyde. He has written widely on propaganda, spin and lobbying and is a director of Spinwatch. His recent publications include: A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power (Pluto Press, 2008), Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy (Pluto Press, 2007), and recently coauthored Cold War on British Muslims (Spinwatch).

Dr Robert Lambert
An academic with a police career in counter-terrorism (1977-2007), who in the aftermath of 9/11 established the Muslim Contact Unit to work emphatically and in partnership with London Muslims.
He is co-director of the European Muslim Research Centre at the Exeter University and lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews.

Rizwaan Sabir
A doctoral researcher at the University of Strathclyde, researching Islam in British and Scottish government policy with a special focus on counter-terrorism. In May 2008 he was detained for seven days as a suspected member of al-Qaida for being in possession of primary research literature. He was released without charge. In September 2011, the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police paid
£20,000 in compensation to Sabir for his wrongful arrest and detention under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Now that Bob Lambert has been exposed as a police spy, will his name be entered into the SpinWatch database?  Also, it would be pertinent for David Miller to address the question on whether he will be entering his own name and that of SpinWatch into the SpinWatch database now that it is inextricably linked to validating and aiding the work of Bob Lambert.

If SpinWatch really did what it says on the SpinWatch tin, and if David Miller is prepared to eat his own dogfood, he would be doing exactly that.

"High Moral Code"

A former police spymaster who spent years living deep undercover in the protest movement has confessed he tricked an innocent woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an elaborate attempt to lend “credibility” to his alter ego.

Bob Lambert, who adopted a false identity to infiltrate leftwing and animal rights groups, said he had the 18-month relationship with the woman, who was not herself involved in political activism, as part of his cover story.

The Guardian has detailed the cases of seven undercover police officers known to have infiltrated protest movements, mostly in the past decade. Of those, five have had sexual relationships with women who were oblivious to their real identities.

Lambert, who became an academic after a 26-year career in the special branch of the Metropolitan police, made the admission after the Guardian contacted him about their relationship.

In a statement, he offered an “unreserved apology” to the woman, who does not want her identity to be revealed, and said he was also sorry for deceiving “law-abiding members of London Greenpeace,” a peaceful protest group.

His former partner, who recently discovered the long-haired political activist she had the relationship with in the 1980s was actually an undercover police officer, said she felt “violated” by the experience.

“I was cruelly tricked and it has made me very angry,” the woman said. “I am actually quite damaged by the whole thing. I am still not over it.”

Police chiefs have claimed that officers who spy on protesters are not permitted “under any circumstances” to sleep with activists. But police spies are known to have been having relationships with activists as recently as last year, as part of a secret police operation to monitor political activists that has been in place since the late 1960s.

In most cases, the police officers developed long-term relationships and their subsequent disappearance left women feeling traumatised and angry.

They include Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years living undercover in Nottingham as environmental campaigner “Mark Stone”.

Another undercover police officer, Peter Black, said sex was a widely used “tool” to gain the trust of activists when he was deployed in the 1990s.

The woman duped by Lambert said their relationship came to an end more than 20 years ago after the man she knew as “Bob Robinson” vanished from her life, claiming to be in hiding from special branch. Lambert was, in fact, a special branch detective and would go on to rise through the ranks of the covert unit to a position in which he managed the deployments of several other spies.

Lambert is currently subject to a Metropolitan police review into whether he was prosecuted in a court using his false identity. The force is considering whether to refer his case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

This excerpt from a second article on Lambert’s ex-girlfriend from the Guardian should also explain what kind of man Lambert is:

A bizarre incident happened at about that time. By 1988, Jenny had moved into a Hackney flat with two others, who were not politically active. One day, special branch detectives raided Jenny’s home, letting slip that they were “looking for Bob”. He was not there. She remembers that one of the detectives picked up a pair of shoes and asked who owned them. They belonged to Jenny. The raid, the Guardian understands, was orchestrated by police to bolster Lambert’s cover story.

After more than a year together, Jenny felt that Bob had given her the right signals that he was interested in having children with her. He had been to see her parents three times. But when she broached the question, he said no, upsetting her hugely. She wrote in her diary that it was a black day. “I remember crying a lot that day. I was just so shocked.”

Clearly Lambert is prepared to do anything to create the believability of his cover without being hindered by the slightest remorse. The question is – how far has he gone to infiltrate Islamist groups and what has he done to get them “on side”?

So far, Daud Abdullah has rushed to Lambert’s defence, in the Guardian. Other Muslim groups who were far more integral to the Lambertist Project have been more reticent. This includes the Muslim Brotherhood fronts – Cordoba Foundation and Islam Expo, both of which fund Lambert’s “academic” outfit at Exeter University, the European Muslim Research Centre. And of course, Bob’s friends at iEngage, the vehicle for Mohammed Ali Harrath, where he was previously employed, have so far remained quiet during this nasty affair.

As Lucy Lips argues:

Unlike ordinary paid informants, who are given pocket money in exchange for assistance, Lambert’s Islamist partners were actively promoted and defended by Lambert, and rewarded with political influence. The partnership is a two way street: Lambert’s own European Muslim Research Centre is funded by two Muslim Brotherhood front organisations, the  Cordoba Institute and Islam Expo.

For years, Islamists have accused their detractors of “McCarthyist” tactics, which were entirely unfounded. But when it turns out that might be the subjects of real police infiltration and spying, instead of using this as proof of their accusations, they rally to the defence of the bona fide McCarthyists. The difference is that Bob Lambert, the McCarthysist in this case, is so integrated to their quest for political influence in the UK, that they cannot and will not be able to disengage their lot from the fallout of an exposed Police Spy.

i have for some time been aware of the powerful analytical frameworks for bio-psycho-social systems developed by the american psychologist dr clare graves and systematised for practical application by don beck and chris cowan in the excellent book “spiral dynamics” (i’m not affiliated with anyone concerned, incidentally). at the risk of sounding like somewhat of a “fanboy”, as i believe it is called on teh interwebs, i am convinced it constitutes an important piece of intellectual real estate for the understanding of complex socio-political systems, particularly in behavioural terms.

you can read more about the basics of spiral dynamics here and here - and i strongly encourage you to do so, but perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate its unique way of enabling insight into human nature is by a review of the various behaviours that have been exhibited during the riots. in the table below you will see a number of different types of responses and the messages associated with them, which you will have seen reflected by the proponents of these value systems in the various media channels. the vast majority of these types of response can present in either healthy or unhealthy forms – thus “C-P” (“red”) behaviours and messages were used both destructively (wanton destruction) and constructively (arresting looters) – in both cases, the behaviour was the demonstration of dominance and power, with corresponding public messages (a cartmanesque “RESPECT MY AUTHORITAAH!”) sent to the media.

you’ll see that whilst most of the operational trouble has functioned at C-P/red systems level, most of the discussion and analysis has been conducted by politicians and the media at blue (mostly “societal breakdown”, good-and-evil) orange (intellectual, opportunistic and tactical) and green (communitarian, progressive and inclusive) levels – and if the reactions are to be systematic, they will have to be a combination of green, blue and orange solutions appropriate to the situation, just as identifying looters using website photos (orange), communally organised clean-up squads (green) and attempts to strengthen traditional family structures (blue) have already been used. i note that ed miliband (who i usually have little time for) has supposedly come out against knee-jerk reactions and i think he’s correct in this at least; david cameron will not get very far if all his responses are couched in “blue” terms to appeal to the “respect for society must be restored” brigade and executed in “orange” technocratic action plans by community workers who are uncomfortable with anything which doesn’t take account of “green” inclusion. if he is serious about the “big society”, he will need to understand that the big society needs *all* these things, it is not a blue, orange or green concept, just as it needs “red” defences and alternative “purple” clan and kin affiliations than those of gang, patois and skin colour – and that includes the purple affiliations of the non-rioters, too! the “big society” could be second-order policy thinking and leadership, but that needs a shift in both our understanding of the situation and the strategies we use to manage it.

in all these cases i would say: if you want to find a constructive, insightful way of discussing the value systems that led to the events of the last couple of weeks, you would do worse than to look at how spiral dynamics sheds light on the tensions, relationships, structures and messages involved.

all comment and discussion welcome.

The claims come as four Tower Hamlets Muslims were jailed for at least 19 years for attacking a local white teacher who gave religious studies lessons to Muslim girls.

The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered more than a dozen other cases in Tower Hamlets where both Muslims and non-Muslims have been threatened or beaten for behaviour deemed to breach fundamentalist “Islamic norms.”

One victim, Mohammed Monzur Rahman, said he was left partially blind and with a dislocated shoulder after being attacked by a mob in Cannon Street Road, Shadwell, for smoking during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last year.

“Two guys stopped me in the street and asked me why I was smoking,” he said. “I just carried on, and before I knew another dozen guys came and jumped me. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in hospital.”

“He reported it to the police and they just said they couldn’t track anyone down and there were no witnesses,” said Ansar Ahmed Ullah, a local anti-extremism campaigner who has advised Mr Rahman. “But there is CCTV in that street and it is lined with shops and people.”

Then are the reports of unmitigated attacks on gay pubs:

Last year, a mob of 30 young Muslims stormed a local gay pub, the George and Dragon, beating and abusing patrons. Many customers of the pub told The Sunday Telegraph that they have been attacked and harassed by local Muslim youths. In 2008 a 20-year-old student, Oli Hemsley, was left permanently paralysed after an attack by a group of young Muslims outside the pub. Only one of his assailants has been caught and jailed.

What’s behind the cover-ups which amount to extra-judicial impunity granted to these extremists?

It would appear that some attacks on gays and non-observant Muslims by Islamist extremists in the Tower Hamlets area are being hushed up or ignored because the police don’t want to disrupt “community cohesion” programs, in particular iniatives run as public-private partnerships between East London Mosque and the Met.

If the attacks were on Muslims by white racist extremists, Azad Ali, chairman of the Muslim Safety Forum would be using them as cases to fortify his position on Islamophobia. But in cases where Islamic extremists attack Muslims and gays, it’s unlikely they are tabled in discussions between the MSF and the police. And the police are likewise slow to enforce the law or give up CCTV footage.

After the attack, the teacher was left with a four inch slash across his face from the corner of his mouth to his right ear and suffered a fractured skull and shattered jaw.
He underwent an operation to repair leg and facial wounds and nerve damage and did not regain consciousness until two days later.

No not in Afghanistan but in Tower Hamlets.

When transcribers went back over a conversation the men had held in the car, they were picked up discussing killing Gary Smith and praising Allah as they drove from the scene after attacking him.

Akmol Hussein, 27, Sheikh Rashid, 27, Azad Hussain, 26, and Simon Alam, 19, all admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent after ambushing Mr Smith outside his school.

Akmol Hussein was heard setting out the plan to attack Mr Smith, head of religious education at Central Foundation Girls’ School in Bow, east London, saying in a Bangladeshi dialect: ‘This is the dog we want to hit, to strike, to kill.’

‘He’s mocking Islam and he’s putting doubts in people’s minds…How can somebody take a job to teach Islam when they’re not even a Muslim themselves?’ he added.
Mr Smith, 37, had been head of religious studies at the school for eight years and was described as an able, enthusiastic and popular teacher.
He followed the national curriculum by teaching his pupils all six of the main religions along with ethical issues such as abortion and euthanasia and the role of women.

“Since we decided to do this conference, it seems to me the energy has gone insane all around the world.”

thus karen berg of the kabbalah centre.

it seems that the “energy” has indeed “gone insane” from the “power of peace” conference: the brothers of centre aficionado lisa tchenguiz have just been arrested in connection with an investigation into the collapsed icelandic bank kaupthing.

obviously, the kabbalah centre will be rushing to claim credit for this turn of events, it having about as much to do with their conference as the other effects they claim.

i think someone has tattooed the wrong letter triad on their bum.

“They are forced into marriages and they are not happy.

“They are married to girls from overseas who they don’t have anything in common with, and they have children and a family.
“But they are looking for fun in their sexual activities and seek out vulnerable girls.

“I get a lot of criticism from Asian people who ask, ‘How can you say this about Asian men?’ But they must wake up and realise there is a problem.”

He added: “While I respect individual choice, I think the community needs to look at marriages in the UK rather than cousin marriages or economic marriages from abroad.

‘I am deeply worried about this as it has happened in my own backyard, and in Rochdale and Bradford. This didn’t happen in my or my father’s generation. This is happening among young Asians.

Lord Ahmed has here taken two phenomena: (a) the increased frequency of Pakistani men who have been charged with offences related to on-street grooming of white girls aged 11 to 16 and (b) the fact that 55% of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, formulated a positive correlation between the two and asserted that the second is the cause of the first.

To be fair to Lord Ahmed, he has, at least, faced up to the systematic pattern of on-street grooming by Pakistani men for child-sex and acknowledged the high frequency of first cousin marriage in the Pakistani community. Kudos for trying to kill two birds with one stone by linking the two, but unfortunately he cites no studies or evidence to back him up. This leaves an undeniably creepy feeling that his thesis is an attempt to excuse paedophiles with a spurious pretext for their crimes – because the perpetrators are predominantly Pakistani men.

This is a very tragic tale on many counts. Once again a religious instructor abuses his position of power, once again a religious instructor abuses the trust shown in him by families and communities and once again young lives are ruined due the evil actions of a sexual predator. Also interesting in this case is his association with HT. HT can’t be blamed for the abuse and I’m sure most HT members, obnoxious though they are, would be horrified and embarrassed by Ashraf’s actions. But interestingly, we haven’t heard a word from HT as of yet. One would expect them to publicly condemn Ashraf, but it seems they have gone for the safe route of keeping silent in the hope that the story doesn’t create any bad PR for them. Rumour has it that senior HT activists have even tried to cover up the whole story, whilst others testified in Ashraf’s defence. You’d have expected them to be calling for the death sentence. Maybe they aren’t that different from Catholics after all.

HT claims to be an ‘Islamic Political Party’ and in the past they have been accused of shunning the spiritual aspects of Islam in favour of blunt and abrasive political sloganeering. This has resulted in a generation of HT activists who know very little about Islam and very little about Islamic ideas of ‘adhab’ (manners) and ‘Ikhlas’ (purity). With all their emphasis on geo-politics and hatred of non-Muslims, it is no surprise that many of their members lack basic Islamic values. I am not suggesting that HT’s teachings encourage people to behave like Ashraf, but surely HT’s political campaigning leaves one devoid of the essence of Islam, i.e. seeking a spiritual connection to ones Lord through good actions. Maybe it’s’ time they began to listen and take their critics seriously. An Islamic political revolution cannot be achieved by individuals who don’t emphasise adherence to the core principles of Islam.

In the meantime, my thoughts and prayers are with those young innocent girls who were abused by this evil monster.

If she feels inconvenienced by law which obliges her to remove her niqab when apprehended by a policeman, rather than accuse the law of racism, she can choose to live in Saudi Arabia, where she won’t have to drive, because being a woman, Saudi Islamic law does not allow her to get behind a wheel. Remember, if you wear a niqab, you are not allowed any more privileges than anyone else. And that means you, sister.

Maulana Yousaf Qureshi

This man is Yousaf Qureshi of Peshawar and he has publicly offered a reward of Rs. 500,000 (Rs. 5 Lacs; US$5880) to anyone who murders Aasiya Bibi of Nankana.

Yousuf Qureshi has never met or seen Aasiya. Yet, his heart is so full of hatred that he is willing to give anyone, even you, Rs. 500,000 to kill her. By the way, he does not seem to hold you in very high esteem either; he believes that you will be willing to commit murder for him for less than US$6,000. And if you will not, he calls upon the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) to do the killing for him. For around the price of a new Suzuki Mehran VX he wants you to commit murder, make three children orphans, and take a human life. All reports suggest that he is mighty proud of what he is trying to do!

It is incidental to the story that the man who is providing this incitement to murder happens to be a so-called “Maulana” and the khateeb of the historic Masjid Mahabat Khan in Peshawar. It is incidental because at the end of the day neither of those facts are ‘material’ (in a legal sense). What is material is that this man, Yousaf Qureshi, is a criminal (incitement to murder is a crime) and he is providing material incentive to turn others into criminals (killing others is murder, a crime).

It should not matter what you think of Asiya Bibi, or about what should happen to her, or of the Blasphemy law, or indeed of Masjid Mahabat Khan. What matters is that murder is a crime. Inciting others to commit this crime is a crime. Paying or promising to pay others to commit this crime is a crime.

This here is not a matter of theology, it is a matter of the law. And not a matter of constitutional law, but of criminal law. This is a test of our society’s appetite for tolerating criminality in the name of morality. But more than that it is a test of our polity’s ability to implement its own laws. Can the government of the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa province, sitting in Islamabad, or the government of Pakistan, sitting in Islamabad, ignore this blatant and so very public disregard of the laws of the country? And if they do, what does it say about them, about their own disregard for the most fundamental laws of the land, about our society, and indeed about us

RevolutionMuslim mixed pro-jihadist writings with the kind of trendy anti-globalisation and post-colonialist waffle so loved by sections of the academic Left. The site has recently re-emerged as IslamPolicy.com, where we find much of the same:

Because the imbalances of the imperialist era remain however, a substantial amount of criticism has rejected key components of this ideological globalization. Increasingly, peoples from non-Western cultural and national backgrounds seek to redefine the parochial paradigm, classifying the contemporary era as ‘neo-imperialist’ or ‘neo-colonial’ and seeking to indigenize concepts of scientific study so to pose alternative perspectives of and thus competing narratives for the interpretation of phenomena.

Behind all this verbiage lies a commitment to terrorism. In July of this year, RevolutionMuslim contributor Zachary Adam Chesser was arrested as he attempted to travel to Somalia, where he intended to join the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabab. Chesser has since pleaded guilty to charges of Providing Material Support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Encouraging Violent Jihadists to Kill US Citizens.

This week, another RevolutionMuslim contributor has been arrested, this time a British citizen:

Islamic satellite channels, a rapidly expanding but largely unregulated section of the broadcast media, have played an instrumental role in recent anti-Ahmadiyya campaigning. This week Ofcom criticised the Ummah Channel for a string of three programmes broadcast shortly before and after the Lahore massacre in which clerics and callers alike said Ahmadis should be killed.

In one programme “Seal of the Prophethood” a cleric declared: Until now, whenever one has claimed to be a prophet the Muslim nation has issued fatwa that he should be killed. It is only that at present Muslims are weak and they do not have the power to slice such a man in two parts.”

On 21 May the Ummah Channel broadcast a in which Islamic scholars debated the status of Ahmadis within Islam.

When a caller named Asim asked for a scholar to explain whether Ahmadis were legitimate Muslims the imam replied: “Since the time of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) the Sahiba [knowledgeable scholars] have confirmed that anyone who believes in a prophet after the Holy Prophet is a kafir [unbeliever], murtad [apostate] and Wajib-ul Qatal [liable for death].”

He later added: “Until now, whoever has claimed prophethood, the Muslim Ummah has issued the fatwa for them to be killed. And all these false prophets have always been killed. It is only now that Muslims have become weak and they do not have the strength that they should cut such people into two.”

Ahmadis were also frequently referred to as “filth” who should be avoided by mainstream Muslims.

Ofcom ruled that the Ummah Channel breached broadcasting regulations with its “abusive treatment of the religious views and beliefs of members of the Ahmadiyya community”.

This is Ofcom’s conclusion:

Notwithstanding these concerns, on reviewing the content it was Ofcom’s overall view that whilst the particular selection of the texts, and language, used by the scholars could be perceived at times as abusive and aggressive, it did not amount to incitement to commission crime or an attempt to lead viewers to disorder. The statements stopped short of encouraging violence against any existing specified or named group and did not clearly advocate any potentially criminal action. Therefore, Ofcom did not consider that the broadcaster breached Rule 3.1.

However, whilst Ofcom did not consider that the material was likely to result in the incitement of a crime, given that there was no direct or indirect call to action, we were extremely concerned about the potential for viewers to interpret the comments, particularly given the context of the ongoing tensions between the Ahmadiyya community and mainstream Islam. Ofcom would therefore urge broadcasters to apply extreme caution when complying such material, especially where there is an context of tension, to ensure that the potential for interpretation does not increase the likelihood of the commission of a crime.

Have a read of what was said in the programmes in question, consider the fact that Ahmadis are being targeted here and now in the United Kingdom, and ask yourself whether OFCOM reached the right conclusion?

The police really ought to be investigating this matter.

****

When the authorities seized the North London Central Mosque from hate preacher Abu Hamza in 2005, the bright idea of some of the not so great and good was to hand the mosque over to a group with close links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Last month, as reported here, it all went wrong when trustee Khalid Mahmood said his signature on legal documents of the mosque had been forged.

Here is the background from Andrew Gilligan:

As we reported last month, a London mosque has been reported to the Charity Commission by one of its own trustees, a Muslim Labour MP, after he said it forged his signature on key legal documents.

In a letter obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, Khalid Mahmood said he had become “seriously concerned” about actions taken by his fellow trustees at the North London Central Mosque and called for a “full investigation” into what he called “a serious criminal offence.”

The mosque, which became notorious as the home of hate preacher Abu Hamza, was closed down by police in 2005 and reconstituted with a new board of trustees, including Mr Mahmood and another Muslim Labour MP, Mohammed Sarwar.

However, an alleged extremist and supporter of the banned terrorist group Hamas, Mohammed Sawalha, was also given a prominent place on the new board, causing tensions with moderate trustees such as Mr Mahmood and Mr Sarwar.

Mr Sawalha is described by the BBC as a former senior figure in Hamas who “is said to have masterminded much of Hamas’s political and military strategy” from his perch in London. Last year, Mr Sawalha also signed the Istanbul Declaration, which calls for attacks against the allies of Israel, which include the UK.

Lawfare is the issue:

Conflict has come to a head over a libel action launched by the mosque against the centre-right thinktank Policy Exchange, which claimed that extremist literature was found on the premises. In his complaint to the mosque and the Charity Commission, Mr Mahmood says that the libel case was launched without his or Mr Sarwar’s knowledge or consent.

“Neither I nor Mr Sarwar have been consulted with regards to the legal action against Policy Exchange,” he said. “To spend what I apprehend to be very substantial sums of money on libel proceedings is not in accordance with the charity’s governing document.” The case was thrown out by the judge, Mr Justice Eady, who ordered the mosque to pay Policy Exchange’s costs, but the mosque is appealing.

Mr Mahmood also said that his signature on a key legal document was forged by another trustee of the mosque, not Mr Sawalha. In his letter, he says: “My signature is said to appear on that document. That signature is a forgery. I understand another trustee to claim on oath that he forged my signature but did so with my authority. I have never given any such authority. I understand his actions constitute an offence under the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act… It appears that a serious criminal offence has occurred.”

Oh what a surprise.

A spokesman for the mosque made this counter-claim when the story surfaced:

“As far as we know, he asked someone to sign on his behalf. I wasn’t aware he denies that. If he does, we need to find out who’s right.”

The mosque is standing by that line, and Mahmood by his:

Now the mosque has replied in similar terms to Mr Mahmood’s complaint – prompting the MP to write back a further stiff letter. “I do not believe that I was sent minutes of the trustees’ meetings,” he says. And: “I have read and re-read your explanation for my forged signature on the Trust Deed… Your letter provides no explanation as to why my signature is forged, which is a serious criminal offence.”

Meanwhile, as reported here, at present Mr Sawalha is busy with the criminal enterprise of funding Hamas in partnership with the Turkish Islamist charity IHH, just as he has been in the recent past with George Galloway’s Viva Palestina.

Those who advocate domestic promotion of the Muslim Brotherhood, sometimes in the name of nothing less than law enforcement, while citing this mosque as a model, do have an interesting record.

Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker:

It is not “anti-Catholic” to hypothesize that these things may have something to do with the Church’s extraordinary difficulty in coming to terms with clerical sexual abuse. The iniquities now roiling the Catholic Church are more shocking than the ones that so outraged Martin Luther. But the broader society in which the Church is embedded has grown incomparably freer. To the extent that the Church manages to purge itself of its shame—its sins, its crimes—it will owe a debt of gratitude to the lawyers, the journalists, and, above all, the victims and families who have had the courage to persevere, against formidable resistance, in holding it to account. Without their efforts, the suffering of tens of thousands of children would still be a secret. Our largely democratic, secularist, liberal, pluralist modern world, against which the Church has so often set its face, turns out to be its best teacher—and the savior, you might say, of its most vulnerable, most trusting communicants.

Shamso Miah, 25, of Redbridge, east London, broke a man’s jaw following a row in a bank queue.
Sitting as a judge, Ms Booth – wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair – said she would suspend his sentence on the basis of his religious belief.

Also in the Telegraph:

Shamso Miah had left a mosque when he grabbed Mohammed Furcan and punched him. The thug ran outside but Furcan chased after him and demanded to know why he had been struck. Miah punched him again.

The National Secular Society claims her attitude was discriminatory and unjust:

Terry Sanderson, the president of the National Secular Society, which has protested to the Office for Judicial Complaints, says: “This seems to indicate that she would not have treated a non-religious person with the same latitude. We think this is discriminatory and unjust.”

Does it also show that Blair judged against the victim, Mohammed Furcan, because she deemed him to be less religious than the thug who broke his jaw?

More findings include:

• Sexual harassment by men was experienced by 83% of Egyptian women.

• Sexual harassment by men experienced by 98% of foreign women visitors in Egypt.

• 62% of Egyptian men admitted to sexually harassing women.

• More than 60% of both male and female respondents suggested that a ‘scantily clad woman’ was most at risk.

• 53% of Egyptian men blame women for ‘bringing it on’ [typical disgusting male attitude].

• The attitudes of Western respondents differed to Egyptian respondents: Western women strongly believed in their entitlement to personal safety and freedom of movement whereas Egyptian respondent did not mention freedom of choice, movement or the right to legal protection, nor were they aware that harassment is a criminal behaviour, regardless of what clothes the victim is wearing.

From my experience, it does not matter what a women wears. In the Gulf, when I used to wear the the abaya, hijab and sometimes niqab I was still harassed by men.  When I made the holy pilgrimage to Mecca, obviously covered, I was again harassed. When I wore a top and jeans, I was harassed. Even when I wore no make-up and went out, I was harassed. Over here, I am still harassed by perverts. The point: if men want to be perverts, they will be perverts regardless of what you wear. The problem does not actually lie with what women wear but with men who think they have the right to treat women with disrespect.

So why should women define modesty based on what men think? Why am I any less modest than a woman who does wear the hijab and abaya? This report suggests that it makes no difference whatsoever! Modesty lies with a woman’s respect for herself regardless of what she wears. And for the men out there reading this, respect women instead of treating them as sexual objects ready to be screwed around with, groped or harassed whenever it pleases you, and then think you have done nothing wrong.

Radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri was jailed for seven years in 2004 for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. It is possible that his three sons will be joining their old man in prison for their involvement in the theft of “luxury cars”.

Hamza’s sons, Hamza Kamel, 22, and Mohammed Mostafa, 27, helped to run the two-year operation with the cleric’s stepson Mohssin Ghailam, 28.

…

Mostafa, of West London, was jailed for three years in Yemen in 1999 for links with a terrorist group. He has admitted two counts of fraud over the use of a false identity to secure a £12,000 loan against a BMW and to get keys for another BMW on April 26 and May 28 last year.

Kamel, also from West London, admitted five counts of handling stolen goods — four Mercedes and a Range Rover Vogue — and laundering £14,975 between October 19, 2007, and May 8 last year. He has six GCSEs and three A levels and had hoped to study computer science.

Ghailam, of Shepherd’s Bush, West London, admitted conspiracy to defraud between January 1, 2007, and November 5 last year. He has also admitted using false identity to secure a loan of £11,004 against a BMW.

Well done boys.

The 14 and 15-year-old girls thought they were visiting Pakistan on holiday. Instead, they were married off in a joint ceremony. The mother married her children off in order to ‘defend’ the family’s honour within Muslim and Pakistani communities, as her eldest daughter supposedly had an affair with an older man, got pregnant and then had an abortion. When the same daughter got married, the mother told her that if she did not consummate the marriage, she would ‘tie her to the bed, blindfold her and strip her’, and then watch to make sure her daughter had sex with her new husband.

When the girls returned to the UK, they told their teacher, who in turn informed the police. The mother was charged and convicted for inciting or causing a child to engage in sexual activity, arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence, and intending to pervert the course of justice. She pleaded not guilty.

On sentencing the mother, the Judge sends a clear message that forcing people to marry without their consent, and at such a young age, should not and will not be tolerated in Britain’s liberal culture and society. The Judge said:

‘Everyone is entitled to his or her beliefs and is to be encouraged to practise in accordance with those beliefs and to live a life which embraces the culture of those beliefs.’

‘But those who choose to live in this country and who, like you, are British subjects, must not abandon our laws in the practice of those beliefs and that culture.’

‘Forced marriage is cruel. It deprives children, your children, of their basic human rights.’

New laws were introduced in 2008 to ensure that no one is forced into marriage and to help those already in a forced marriage. The police, friend or victim can apply for a Forced Marriage Protection Order under the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007, which forbids family members taking anyone abroad for marriage or intimidating victims to get married. If the protection orders are breached, an individual can face up to two years imprisonment. The legislation is the first to tackle the problem of forced marriages. However, the onus is on the victim or someone close to them to apply for a protection order.

In 2004 there were plans to make forced marriages a criminal offence in it self. However, MPs dropped the plans for fear of a backlash, admitting that any such law would be ‘resented as an intrusion into minority cultures and religions’.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an umbrella organisation often claiming to represent Muslims in Britain, opposed plans to create new laws specifically targeting forced marriages citing current laws as adequate. They argued that new laws would be seen as targeting minority ethnic and religious communities, leading to, for example, Muslim communities feeling further ‘stigmatised’. In its 2005 response to the government’s Forced Marriage Unit consultation paper, FORCED MARRIAGE – A Wrong not a Right (2005), the MCB wrote (doc file):

‘Any law in this regard which is promoted as a tool to help the victims and deter the offenders is most unlikely to be effective because of the nature of the problem and the cultural as well as familial sensitivities involved. A coercive tool in a family and cultural setting is rarely, if ever successful.

‘The family bond and loyalty will deter many from using the law. The tool when used will in effect tear the family unit and create division and distress.

‘The MCB believes that the only way to eradicate this criminal cultural practice is through education and empowerment. The change has to be community led and appropriately resourced.’

The MCB further said that ‘a “forced marriage” has no religious, moral or legal validity.’

According to the government’s Forced Marriage Unit, 65% of all known cases of forced marriages in the UK involve individuals of Pakistani origin – the mother convicted is of Pakistani origin – though this practice is known to exist amongst other cultural and religious groups. From personal observation, familial ties, bonds and loyalties are particularly strong amongst families of South Asian or Middle Eastern backgrounds. It would be extremely difficult for the victim to break such familial ties by seeking a Protection Order, for example.

Contrary to the MCB’s insight on forced marriages, new laws were made to tackle this issue. The practice should (and is) first and foremost be made illegal. Those who think it’s normal must be made aware that they will face the consequences if they break the law. The MCB were wrong in saying that this very problematic and unfortunately widespread issue should just be tackled through ‘education and empowerment’ – who in the ‘community’ will be doing the educating? Those who break the law should and must face the consequences for their actions – that’s why the conviction of the 39-year-old mother is so important – it sets the precedence.