In a recent piece for the New Statesman, Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz made the point that government should bypass Islamist front groups such as MAB, IFE and the MCB when engaging with Muslims. Rather Muslims should seek representation through their elected politicians, just like all other citizens, and Islamist inspired organisations should not be allowed to monopolise Muslim representation. Quite a straight forward argument you may think, who could possibly be upset with a challenge to anti-democratic means to representation and extremism?

Welcome to the world of Bob Pitt. Bob is an ageing and outmoded far-left blogger who has developed a reputation for making mind-bending and logic-stretching arguments in order to contort reality to his fit his cynical far-left worldview. In Bob’s world, Islamophobia is not a societal scourge to be challenged, but rather something to be exploited and manipulated for short-term political point scoring. His website www.Islamaphobiawatch.com’ is less about Islamophobia and more about attacking his political opponents, many of whom are Muslim.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that Bob was not happy with Maajid’s piece.  In fact, he has an entire piece on his website attacking it. In his piece Bob claims that Maajid:

‘…presents an argument against the state having relations not just with Islamists of any variety but with any group claiming to represent any section of the Muslim community.

This is not of course a view that prevented Nawaz and his friends at Quilliam from accepting generous state funding under the last Labour government, on the spurious grounds that they represented a tendency within the Muslim community that could assist in the campaign against terrorism. And if the principle of rejecting co-operation with Ikhwan-associated political organisations were applied to foreign policy it would lead to the UK breaking relations with Tunisia and Egypt.’

Firstly, Maajid does not argue that the state should have absolutely no relations with Islamists or groups claiming to represent any section of the Muslim community. Rather, he quite clearly argues that government should not rely on such groups when engaging withBritain’s diverse Muslim communities because they don’t represent Muslims, they are not elected and they represent the more repressive and reactionary strands within Muslim communities. Secondly, Quilliam never claimed to represent any Muslim community nor any sections of it, this is made very clear from their website. Thirdly, Bob’s foreign policy analogy is simple laughable because in Tunisia and Egypt there have been elections recently and Islamists have won a large share of the vote. Hence, engaging with those governments is very different since the Islamists within those governments have a democratic mandate, which their counterparts in the UK lack. Also, co-operating with Islamists on issues of concern is very different to relying on them to represent the views of people they don’t represent and have had no contact with.

As a Muslim, I take offence to Bob, under the guise of tackling Islamophobia, attacking people who are speaking against attempts by Islamists to monopolise Muslim engagement, especially when the arguments made are so lame and badly argued. I appreciate sections of the left have been drifting aimlessly for a number of years but this really takes the biscuit.

Then again, Bob is rumoured to have belonged to Gerry Healy’s Workers Revolutionary Party, which was known for having links with Saddam Hussain and Colonel Gaddafi. Healy himself was accused of sexually abusing female colleagues and enjoying a financially comfortable lifestyle whilst allowed fellow activists, who he lived off, to live in poverty. With roots like that its not surprising that Bob produces such lame nonsense.

The unexpected victory of the Salafists in the Egypt and Tunisia elections has caught many by surprise, not least the Muslim Brotherhood who once thought that they would clean up, but now are faced with the prospect of having to share power with a segment they regarded as marginal. The rise of the Salafists is seen by some as the authentic reaction to the repression of Islamic practice by secular Arab despots. The Salafists regard the first century of Islamic history as the perfected state for humanity,  and now they see themselves as the real inheritors of the voice of the repressed Muslim majority. Their stake has been under-reported because attention has always been directed on the Muslim Brotherhood as the stakeholders of the Islamist vote.

The rise of the Salafists is arguably the most alarming dynamic unleashed by the Egyptian revolution.

But this story has been muffled by an upbeat media narrative that describes the anti-Mubarak movement as dominated by secular youth (in a country of 85 million with median age of 24, the revolution naturally contained many young people). Media coverage was also fixated on the perceived or real dangers contained in the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But as revolutionaries and Mubarak loyalists fought for Tahrir Square, the Salafis maintained an aggressive but low-profile presence at its barricaded entrances.

Part of the bias in coverage has been created by protest organisers. An effort by Sheikh Hassan to enter the square and proclaim his support for the revolution was thwarted by protesters concerned that he would compromise the secular atmosphere they were feeding the western media. That version of the story put the secular users of social networks at the front and centre of coverage.

“I’m not worried so much about the Muslim Brothers as about the Salafis,” said Mohammed ElBaradei, the Nobel peace prize winner and presidential candidate, last month, voicing the fears of secularists. “Some of them, well, there is no common ground with them. They want a completely theocratic state. One of their spokesmen said the other day that democracy is against Islam, and the ultimate authority should be the Quran – as, of course, interpreted by him.”

We miss these signposts of the times at our peril. The 1979 Iranian revolution’s religious roots were largely ignored by the international press, which preferred to interview foreign language-speaking Iranians rather than the less sophisticated crowds supporting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Similarly, the great popularity of a religious figure such as Sheikh Hassan did not fit the feel-good narrative of Tahrir Square.

The Mubarak regime had suppressed Islamists in many ways, from banning political parties like the Muslim Brotherhood to consistently harassing devout Muslims in Cairo’s streets. But that was not much mentioned. Mr Mubarak was a staunch western ally and so, as with the Shah of Iran, his record of repression was airbrushed.

Closing down the Iranian Embassy in London is not forceful enough. After the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran by a mob of petrol-bomb-hurling hardliners, the British Government was right to move beyond impotent expressions of “outrage” and demand that Iran’s embassy staff leave the UK within 48 hours.But Britain can do more in the face of what looks like officially orchestrated violence.

There is an arm – albeit unofficial – of the Islamic republic at work here that could be punished to show British disapproval: Press TV’s London operation should be shut down.

Launched in 2007 as an “alternative” to Western media, Press TV is an English-language satellite television channel with a licence to operate in London. It is funded by, and acts as a mouthpiece for, the Iranian regime. Muslim and non-Muslim female presenters are required to wear the Islamic headscarf in front of the camera while broadcasting from London.

The truth is distorted and its reports manipulated to fit the Tehran regime’s agenda. One former correspondent, Jody Sabral, recently resigned in protest over the way Press TV covered the uprisings in the Arab world. She castigated the channel for ignoring much of the protest taking place in Syria, an Iranian ally, while providing “urgent” coverage of the Shia protests in Bahrain – hardly an accident, given Iran’s interest in fomenting unrest there to increase its power base.

The Iranian Green Revolution and the murder of Neda Agha Soltan by pro-regime thugs have been presented as Western conspiracies by Press TV. The channel even broadcast a coerced confession by Maziar Bahari, a Newsweek journalist while he was imprisoned on espionage charges. Ofcom is considering revoking Press TV’s licence after its investigation found that the channel should have declined to air the interview as it was clearly obtained under duress. In response to Ofcom’s findings, Press TV has claimed that it is a victim of “censorship” by “certain members of the Royal Family and Government”.

Although Press TV is an instrument of propaganda, the Foreign Office has been apprehensive about closing it down for fear that it would be challenged under free speech laws.

The siege of the embassy and the expulsion of the British Ambassador demonstrate that Iran intends to heat up its public diplomacy war. Free speech laws should not extend to hosting the propaganda service of a belligerent government. As long as Press TV is funded by the current Iranian regime, the closure of its London operation is a necessity.

Would you be just a little bit concerned by that prospect or would you rather be celebrating it as a victory of “the democratic process”? Over at the Guardian (naturally) the Director-General of al-Jazeera Wadah Khanfar goes for the latter option in the case of Arab countries from Egypt to Tunisia.

It’s titled “Those who support democracy must welcome the rise of political Islam”. Should we really? It also contains this execrable pre-emptive get-out clause:

However, political Islam has also faced enormous pressures from dictatorial Arab regimes, pressures that became more intense after 9/11. Islamic institutions were suppressed. Islamic activists were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Such experiences gave rise to a profound bitterness. Given the history, it is only natural that we should hear overzealous slogans or intolerant threats from some activists. Some of those now at the forefront of election campaigns were only recently released from prison. It would not be fair to expect them to use the voice of professional diplomats.

Prepare to suspend your disbelief and your principles.

Potkin Azarmehr on the banning of ‘Persepolis’ by the Ennahda party in Tunisia:

I was so saddened to learn about the trial in Tunisia over the broadcasting of the animated movie, Persepolis. The Tunisian revolution which was supposed to be about the overthrow of a dictator will soon descend into a religious dictatorship, if the secular Tunisians remain silent about this sort of thing. Once again, my favourite quote by Edmund Burke “Evil Only Prevails, When the Good Remain Silent” manifests itself in our own times.

The animated movie, Persepolis, is not about attacking sacred values at all. Only a religious zealot moron could come to such a conclusion. It is in fact a brilliant depiction of how a revolution against dictatorship is hijacked by such extremists. It is a movie that pre-warns ordinary people what will happen if they remain silent and allow the extremists to take over.

All Iranians who have experienced religious dictatorship will identify with the Persepolis movie. I remember watching it with my elder son in cinema. When the little girl, the main character of the film, stood up to her teacher, who was regurgitating the official revolutionary propaganda, and delivered the real truth, I was so overwhelmed that much to the embarrassment of my 10 year old, I got up in the middle of the movie and started clapping, only to have my shirt pulled by my 10 year old and be told “we just sit down and watch the movie ok? no clapping”.

The nonsense of the trial however can best be summed up by the following statement made by Nabil Karoui, the owner of the private Nessma television, which broadcast the movie:
“I am very sad when I see that the people that burned my house are free while I am here because I broadcast a film which was authorised” and he rightly described the trial as the “death of freedom of expression”.

In the years to come, the history of the so-called “war in Afghanistan” will be little more than a footnote in a chapter about the lies successive American governments told themselves and the world about Pakistan – that American-subsidized, nuclear-armed, military-industrial crime syndicate with a bribe market for a parliament that masquerades as a UN member state. All we can hope is that chapter won’t be in a book about a nuclear holocaust that ended a sickening, paranoid hoax of a country that had held most of its 170 million “citizens” hostage and barely alive on less than $2 a day in the final years before it all went up in flames.

Here’s a rare and horrifying glimpse of the reality behind the lies: The Ally From Hell. Excellent journalism from Jeffrey Goldberg and Marc Ambinder.

And here’s a typically revolting recrudescence of Yank excuse-making from Thomas Friedman, under the headline A Long List Of Suckers, who provides Answer # 1953 to the mewling “Why do they hate us?” question: “America today needs much more cost-efficient ways to influence geopolitics in Asia than keeping troops there indefinitely. We need to better leverage the natural competitions in this region to our ends.”

Thanks for that, Amreeka.

As Bob Lambert’s credibility in Londonistan is sinking faster than Euro, it would be wise for anyone commenting on identity politics, foreign affairs and counter-terrorism to try to dissect his motives and background in dealing with the Islamists. We are, by admission, an esoteric group of political scientists and hacks who are trying to understand the complex implications of Bob’s demise. But, are we blinding ourselves to the obvious.

I believe there are a few questions which we need to urgently grapple with before we understand the nature of the beast. We also need to understand that Bob was the figurehead for a greater movement within Whitehall and the British Establishment. The first question being: Is Bob Lambert a liberal or a realist? Also: Does British neoliberal foreign and economic policy rely on having Islamists as union busters, left-wing bashers and regime destablisers abroad?; Was Londonistan build on realist foreign policy or was it developed by multiculturalism?

These questions and their answers will help to lay the foundations of our future relationships with the wider world, the Muslim world especially. The answers will also have an effect on British politics and domestic security. Michael Gove, Melanie Phillips and British neocons have tried to pass off Londonistan as being part of and caused by multiculturalism. Is it?

Multiculturalism is often seen as a liberal and progressive movement. Phillip’s Londonistan and Gove’s Celsius 7/7 all talk about how multiculturalism was the cause of how the British state allowed Islamist maniacs to use the UK as a political and financial centre for their operations. This is a slight of hand. Multiculturalism, which arose from postcolonial studies and policies to welcome people from the Commonwealth and to help combat the rise of the far-right, isn’t the major reason we have regime-changing fundamentalists in the UK. Neocons and realists have known that Islamism was built up to combat Nasser’s nationalism and communism in the Muslim world. The neocons and realists have both talked about it in Atlanticist style think-tanks for years during the Cold War. Did 9/11 happen and they conveniently forgot?

Mark Curtis, the author of Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam, believes that the British Establishment has always enjoyed close ties to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s security apparatus. He believes that the trinity uses radical Islamism to push foreign and domestic policies. During the post-Cold War period and the build-up to 9/11 the prize of Central Asia, and its natural resources, was at stake. Londonistan was central to this new Great Game. Curtis looked at diplomatic cables and reports from the National Archives. He showed how the trilateral relations helped to create Londonistan during the Cold War. The US often joined in, but it was usually a very British affair. The project was foreign policy realism at its best, using human rights and minority politics, post-colonial theories to protect their investments (i.e. the Islamists). But how does Lambert and the Establishment fit in?

Bob’s talent for ‘going native’ is what made him an effective undercover operative and agent handler. His betrayal of democratic principles for the Establishment’s ‘greater good’, can’t be allowed to escape our analysis. He’s picking up a big-fat pension for his work on countering economic and political adversaries of the state. Bob’s work on Islamism is central to domestic security and British foreign policy. He must have backers in the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

To the majority of people, most of his previous targets are simply democratic and noisy protest movements. Lambert’s work on countering Irish republicanism was a genuine and essential task for national security. The rest of his work was not. It makes the FBI’s COINTELPRO, an illegal domestic spying programme, look like a picnic. In the last decade, British intelligence services aren’t covering themselves in glory, but it was inevitable that this would happen especially after the Iraq War and the skewing of intelligence, facts and figures.

Intelligence services should stick to doing military, counter-terrorism and counter intelligence work. They aren’t there to rock the British democratic boat or to lie to get us into potentially illegal foreign wars. They also shouldn’t be using radical Islamists or anyone else to rock others boats unless they are an active threat. The tactical aspects of their work are second to none, but the strategic part, which is dictated by the mandarins of Whitehall, is shoddy and dangerous at best. It’s not cost or politically effective. And, that is a realist interpretation of their policies. Machiavelli, Kissinger and Plato would shake their heads in bemusement.

Kissinger, who is hated by many liberals, has actually completed an about turn in the last few years. Kissinger knows that the realist’s…erm… realities are now for accountability and fairness in government, rather than secrecy and double-dealing two-track policies both at home and abroad. He knows that George Soros and his campaign for open governance has won even as we head into uncertain times were double-dealing would have been a nice tool for statesman.

As a liberal I find the state’s role in countering genuine protest disgusting. The fact that British officers were pimped-out to other European governments to combat their own democratic lawful ‘subversives’ is also a disgrace. The Establishment’s handling of politics, the economy and the flirtation with Murdoch Empire has been a stain on Britain for decades. It’s all coming out now, pretty rapidly, and the foundations do look precarious, but these problems should have been dealt with years ago. It’s a Cold War mentality which is borne out of suspicion and arrogance. The Establishment hate and despise their publics and politicians almost as much as the rapidly dwindling Middle Eastern dictators. There needs to be urgent reform.

I’m not a hand wringing conflict averse liberal, but I don’t want our intelligence services playing games of empire. There have been major developments in foreign affairs over the last twenty years. History has now shown that investing in radicals at home and abroad for the sake of outdated realism hasn’t given us any real economic or political dividends. We never seize the land or the resources of the places we invade. So, why bother? We would have saved money and our prestige in the world by doing little rather than interfering in Machiavellian schemes, especially with nations such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who know how to pull the wool over the eyes of our security and diplomatic corps.

Lambert’s Londonistan is beginning to crack, but if we fail to see what helped to build it we won’t be able to move on properly. It is almost guaranteed that the Establishment will build something else to take its place. As the rest of the world is starting to have an awakening, democratic or not, it’s too early to tell, we need to realise that we need to wake up to our own foibles in the security realms, which have frankly been a national disgrace and an international mess.

We are a democracy that believes in fairness and justice. Our intelligence agencies are designed to break laws, they can still do that, but they must take stock that our foreign policy and strategic objectives must become clearer, although waterproof, in the wiki-age or we will lose friends fast. The Establishment isn’t liked or trusted by the British public never mind the new polity in the Middle East. The rising publics of the Middle East need to be able to trust us. We have a lot of work to do.

This is Bright on Livingstone’s favourite Islamist copper, Bob Lambert:

Bob Lambert, the Islamist copper, completed his doctorate on his own police work when he left the force but soon established himself as a regular Guardian commentator. He also set up the European Muslim Centre at Exeter University, with money from the Islamist Cordoba Foundation and Islam Expo, although he had to issue an apology for the first piece of work there after complaints from councillors in east London and local MP Jim Fitzpatrick who were wrongly described as Islamphobic.

More recently Dr Lambert was exposed by the Guardian as ‘Bob Robinson’, an undercover officer who exposed violent extremists within the animal rights and environmental movement in the 1980s. He has since publicly apologised to a woman who thought she had a relationship with him but was in fact being used to maintain his cover. At the same time, Dr Lambert has issued a statement to reassure British Muslims that he has not been playing a similar double game with his Islamist friends.

Ken Livingstone has always been over-impressed by clever people. He is clearly in awe of his former aide John Ross, whom he describes in his memoirs as a “workaholic professional revolutionary” and a “statistician of formidable intelligence”. His use of Dr Lambert’s muddled thinking as justification for his invitation to a Muslim cleric noted for his anti-Jewish, misogynistic and homophobic outbursts is part of a wider problem for a man who wishes to return as London mayor.

There’s an old Jewish joke designed to prick the academic pretensions of people like Dr Lambert. “What is a phudnik? A nudnik with a PhD”. Dr Lambert is a classic phudnik.

Read it in full.

The Cordoba Foundation regretfully announces that the forthcoming event on the 8th of November ‘Launch of Two Ground Breaking Pieces of Research’ has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologise for any incovenience caused.

Lucy Lips explains what these “unforseen circumstances” could be

The “unforseen circumstances” are that, earlier this month, Bob Lambert was unmasked as a police spy, who had spent 5 years infiltrating a non-violent Green anarchist group, during the course of which, he had a relationship with a completely politically uninvolved woman, who he wooed by pretending to be an animal rights activist on the run.

It is a huge shame that this event has been cancelled. It would have been very entertaining indeed to have attended it.

Obviously the cancellation was due to ‘health and safety’ issues. But the health and safety of whom?

Yesterday, I asked a question:

If a person denies clear evidence of racism, defends a racist, and attacks a leading anti-racist institution, is it fair to conclude that they are in fact a racist?

It is a genuine question. The answer in some cases will, undoubtedly, be yes. However, others may find themselves in the position of supporting a racist and denying their racism, and attacking anti-racist organisations: because they believe that a little racism is necessary, in furtherance of a greater political cause. Those people are not racists themselves. They are merely tolerating and facilitating racism, making it more difficult to challenge, giving it an alibi.

Yet others may honestly fail to recognise racism, or may not believe the evidence of racism. It is quite easy to tell who those innocent endorsers of racism are. They’re the ones who, once they realise their error, are the keenest to correct it, publicly.

Raed Salah is a racist. He is a hardline antisemite, who has admitted funding the genocidal racist terrorist group, Hamas. He is to be expelled from the United Kingdom because, in the words of the Tribunal.

We are satisfied that the appellant has engaged in the unacceptable behaviour of fostering hatred which might lead to intercommunity violence in the UK.

“We are satisfied that the appellant’s words and actions tend to be inflammatory, divisive, insulting and likely to foment tension and radicalism.

Let us recap, briefly, the reasons that we can be sure that Raed Salah is a racist and extremist.

• He has claimed that Jews baked “the blood of children” into their “holy bread” – the ancient and vicious blood libel.
• He has claimed that 4,000 Jews skipped work at the World Trade Centre on 9/11 and suggested that Israel carried out the 9/11 attacks.
• His political party published a paean to “the Martyr, Sheikh Osama Bin Laden“, whose killers had “sold their consciences to Satan”.
• He has cited so-called Franklin Prophecy: a Nazi forgery in which Benjamin Franklin supposedly warns America about Jews
• He attended the launch of the Mavi Marmara and incited violence on board. At the launch ceremony and on board Mavi Marmara passengers chanted a notorious extremist slogan, commemorating a massacre of Arabian Jews: “Khaybar! Khaybar! Oh Jews! The army of Mohammed will return!”.
• The Mavi Marmara escapade was organised by the Turkish charity IHH, one of the biggest and most keen material and political supporters of Hamas in the world. Salah is closely linked to IHH.
• He chuckled at the memory of taunting a Jewish teacher with a Swastika in a friendly chat with fellow extremist Azzam “Kaboom” Tamimi on Al-Hiwar TV, a TV channel based in London that serves the Muslim Brotherhood .
• He wrote an antisemitic poem which used various theological references to Jews, including: “The Creator meant for you to be monkeys and losers … you are the bacteria of all times”, which clearly refer to Jews generally.
• He has admitted funding Hamas, for which he served two years in prison. Hamas leaders have hailed him and rallied to his cause. Recently the terrorist group named a football pitch after him.
• He has been named as a trustee of the Union of Good, a Hamas funding organisation, and has worked closely with Interpal, the British charity that serves Hamas.
• His hosts in the UK have included some of the country’s worst extremists, such as Daud Abdullah and Ismail Patel, and a fellow speaker on his ill-fated tour was to be Ahmad Nofal of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. Nofal too has been banned from the UK.
• He claims that homosexuality is a “great crime” which signals “the start of the collapse of every society”.

Now, if you are a racist, or a strategic facilitator of racism, I wouldn’t expect you to have any problem with any of this at all. Indeed, you probably support Raed Salah because this is what he believes.

However, if you found yourself backing Raed Salah because you’d been fooled into believing that none of the above was true: now is the time to tell us so. It is a horrifying thing to be tricked into becoming an aider and abetter of racism, and you must feel very angry with those who put you in this position.

The Labour MPs

Raed Salah attracted a good number of supporters who are Labour Members of Parliament. Let’s consider them, one by one.

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Corbyn was one of the scheduled speakers alongside Salah at an event in Parliament.  He knew of the evidence showing that Raed Salah was a racist, but dismissed it on the ground that Salah denied that he was:

We checked him out and he denied completely that he was an anti-Semite so we thought it was appropriate to bring him over.

The Parliamentary event went ahead without Salah, who had been arrested.  According to blogger Richard Millett, who attended the event, Corbyn told the audience he would help to challenge the exclusion of Salah.

Now that Jeremy Corbyn MP knows that Salah’s denial of racism was a lie, he should admit his error in backing him.

Yasmin Qureshi MP

Yasmin Qureshi was also one of the scheduled speakers at the Parliamentary meeting featuring Salah.  On her website, she has claimed that she “would not wish to share a platform if these allegations were true”.

I was recently informed of allegations made against one of the speakers invited by PSC to speak at the meeting. I do not personally know Raed Saleh but I have been closely observing the situation unfold.  I condemn any form of racism, fascism, anti-Semitism or Islamaphobia. I have made it clear that I would not wish to share a platform if these allegations were true.

However, Qureshi goes on to suggest she does not believe the allegations by republishing a statement from Middle East Monitor and the PSC which includes this line:

The Sheikh has appealed against the deportation in court. His team had already begun legal proceedings against Daily Telegraph and Jewish Chronicle journalists for printing false allegations about him last week.

There will be no libel case. Salah’s racism has been uncovered and verified, and his exclusion endorsed by a court.

Now that Yasmin Qureshi MP knows that Salah’s denial of racism was a lie, she should admit her error in backing him.

Richard Burden MP

Richard Burden is a regular promoter of Islamist extremists.  He was another scheduled speaker at the Parliamentary meeting featuring Salah.  He has issued a statement that is similar to Yasmin Qureshi’s.  He claims he would not share a platform with an antisemite.  He then proceeds to deny the evidence and complains about “innuendo”.

Two weeks ago allegations of anti-Semitism were made against Raed Salah, who I was told was one of the other people PSC had invited to speak at this meeting. To my knowledge I have never met Mr Salah. I have no truck for anti-Semitism and I made it clear that I would not be willing to share a platform with such a person if these allegations were true.

The organisers of the meeting put these allegations to Raed Salah. He denied the statements that had been attributed to him and asked lawyers to begin legal action against those spreading the allegations. I am not aware of any evidence being produced to back up the allegations.

…

The Home Secretary must urgently clarify this situation. It is important that everyone should be aware of what is fact and what is conjecture. Guilt should be on the basis of evidence and conviction, not by innuendo, allegation or association.

Richard Burden MP then turned up to the meeting which Raed Salah was to have addressed. This is what he said:

Let me put absolutely on the record what Jeremy [Corbyn] said.  Neither I nor anyone else on this panel has any truck with antisemitism, any truck with racism, whatsoever.  But I will say this: if I am going to see anybody convicted of those sorts of allegations, I want to see them convicted on the basis of evidence.  I don’t want to see them condemned and guilt assumed on the basis of innuendo, allegation, or association.  [audience applauds loudly]

Now the evidence has been examined in full. He can read it, through the links above. It has been tested by a court. Raed Salah’s exclusion has been confirmed.

Now that Richard Burden MP knows that Salah’s denial of racism was a lie, he should admit his error in backing him.

Martin “Tentacles” Linton

Martin Linton is no longer an MP. However, he runs Labour Friends of Palestine.

He too is a supporter of Raed Salah, and appeared on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s station, Press TV, to argue that Salah should have been admitted to Britain so that he could “speak his mind”.

We know that Salah’s “mind” contains unequivocal and extreme racist filth. That’s that Martin Linton supports.

There is no point in asking him to admit his error in backing Raed Salah. He’s proud of it.

Labour Friends of Palestine

All of the MPs listed above are supporters of Labour Friends of Palestine.

Rather than censure an outfit whose members are apologists for and defenders of this racist, extremist and supporter of terrorism, the Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, thought it appropriate to honour them at the Labour party conference:

I want to pay tribute to Simon Danczuk, to Andy Slaughter, and to Richard Burden, first of all, as well as Martin Linton, who is here, for the work they do.

Make no mistake. The “work they do” is public defending racists, and attacking those who oppose racism and extremism.

Ed Miliband’s support of those within the Labour Party who have devoted themselves to the defence of racists is no different from the Tory Party, in the days that the racist Monday Club was considered an acceptable part of Tory politics.

The days of tolerating racism are long gone, for the Tories. Not so, sadly, for Labour.

I think that Labour Party members, and voters, have a right to expect a zero-tolerance approach to racism in the Labour Party. It is pretty outrageous that Labour MPs should have appeared in support of, and then in defence of, a man like Raed Salah: whose racism is a matter of record, and is simply undeniable.

Why not write to, or call these MPs. Ask them where they stand now, and if they are prepared to retract their support for Raed Salah, in public.

• Jeremy Corbyn: corbynj@parliament.uk,            020 7219 3545
• Yasmin Qureshi: yasmin.qureshi.mp@parliament.uk,            020 7219 7019
• Richard Burden: richard.burden.mp@parliament.uk,            020 7219 2318

Please be polite.

1) The public institutions of the judiciary, executive and military have been infiltrated by far-right religious-nationalist groups (such as the Jamaat or Tehreek-i-Taliban – let’s use the term Islamists  to define them) to such an extent that the autonomy and legitimacy of civil institutions have been deeply compromised.

Why bother with the idea of punishing Qadri when it is no longer in the realm of the possible. An olive branch that is offered to the Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP) Pakistan and other killers can be extended to Qadri as well. Not to forget that the political leadership in the form of the recent All Parties Conference has surrendered to a peculiar agenda. So, forget about Jinnah’s August 11 speech now as the state has already transformed to a hybrid-theocracy. It has small liberal spaces, equally smaller spaces where Sharia is formally implemented, and larger spaces where the orthodox law is informally enforced. Try standing in front of a Jamaat-i-Islami/Jamaatud Dawa procession in support of Qadri to feel the melting away of the state and its changed character. Sadly, many of our post-modernists scholars will, yet again, call this as part of the secularising process through bringing religion into public sphere. Driven by personal ambitions to establish their scholarship, they won’t even question that the current discourse is not secularising as it condemns all other arguments as being against Islam. Are the protesters even willing to explore other religious arguments that may not save Qadri from the sentence given by the ATC judge?

There are no governments that are willing to stand up to the bullying and to establish the writ of the state. There is no intent to even deradicalise society because, in the words of a senior bureaucrat of the Punjab government, reputed to be close to the chief minister, there is no radicalisation in Punjab and even if there were, why should the state become an ideological warrior. Obviously, this CSS-qualifiedbabu considered deradicalisation as anti-religion or against the tenets of Islam. This bureaucrat was a good example to debunk the argument that radicalisation results from lack of education. Here was a case of a literate man not willing to understand that deradicalisation is about creating sufficient space for all religions and sects to co-exist without fear of persecution, and increasing the state’s capacity to provide justice for all, irrespective of their cast, creed and religion. Thus, he presented the Punjab government’s development priorities as devoid of the goal of deradicalisation.

2) The radicalisation of Pakistani society, it’s swing to the side of the religious far-right, is a direct function of laws established by the Bhutto regime in 1973 and compounded by  General Zia’s kowtowing to the mullahs. It has taken more than 30 years to realise the price Pakistani civil society has had to pay for having to show deference to the orthodox Sunni establishment and Maududi’s legacy of bastards. Pakistan is at the point where its traditional feudal system is being replaced by an Islamist one..

There are no governments that are willing to stand up to the bullying and to establish the writ of the state. There is no intent to even deradicalise society because, in the words of a senior bureaucrat of the Punjab government, reputed to be close to the chief minister, there is no radicalisation in Punjab and even if there were, why should the state become an ideological warrior. Obviously, this CSS-qualifiedbabu considered deradicalisation as anti-religion or against the tenets of Islam. This bureaucrat was a good example to debunk the argument that radicalisation results from lack of education. Here was a case of a literate man not willing to understand that deradicalisation is about creating sufficient space for all religions and sects to co-exist without fear of persecution, and increasing the state’s capacity to provide justice for all, irrespective of their cast, creed and religion. Thus, he presented the Punjab government’s development priorities as devoid of the goal of deradicalisation.

There is a social and religious meltdown going on in Pakistan. But there is still hope while a secular strain exists embodied by good people like Ayesha Siddiqa.

Raed Salah has lost his ill conceived attempt to prevent his deportation from the United Kingdom. Despite being the subject of a banning order, you will remember that the hate preacher was accidentally admitted to the United Kingdom.

He has had his fun. It is now time for him to sling his hook.

This is what the court found:

We are satisfied that the appellant has engaged in the unacceptable behaviour of fostering hatred which might lead to intercommunity violence in the UK.

“We are satisfied that the appellant’s words and actions tend to be inflammatory, divisive, insulting and likely to foment tension and radicalism.

I urge you to read the response of The CST to the judgement.

Given that Salah was bound to fail in his challenge, one might ask: why did he bother. As the trial unfolded, the strategy of the Salah team became clear. Their case was, in essence, a pretty disgraceful attempt to portray Raed Salah as a victim of a Jewish conspiracy.

Specifically, the Raed Salah defence campaign spread the defamatory lie that the Community Security Trust, a respected anti-racist organisation, had fed the Home Office “doctored quotes” about Raed Salah. About that allegation, the CST notes:

CST completely rejects this wholly untrue claim, which is not mentioned in today’s ruling. It appears to be something given to journalists writing about the case rather than a meaningful claim relied on in court by Salah.

Indeed,  The CST provided original source material, on which the partial newspaper reports about Salah’s conduct were based.  Far from doctoring the quotes, The CST provided full context for Salah’s behaviour, in a manner which was potentially helpful to his case.

In advancing this “Jewish conspiracy” defence, Raed Salah’s team relied on two supposedly “expert witnesses”. The first is Professor David Miller. The second is Bob Lambert

David Miller runs a website called “Spinwatch”. Spinwatch has a shameful track record of attacking Muslim liberals and opponents of terrorist movements. Notoriously, David Miller’s site presented the views of the prominent neo-Nazi academic Kevin MacDonald, to explain the political behaviour of Jews.

The second is Bob Lambert, who has recently been exposed as a police spy, who deceived not only the members of Green anarchist group he had infiltrated, but also lied to his girlfriend, to whom he pretended to be an environmental activist on the run. Quite apart from Lambert’s personal and political dishonesty: his faux-academic European Muslim Research Centre (“EMRC”)  at Exeter University is funded by two Muslim Brotherhood front organisations: Islam Expo and the Cordoba Foundation.

The directors of IslamExpo include fugitive Hamas commander and Istanbul declaration signatory Mohammed Sawalha. The Cordoba Foundation is run by the Muslim Brotherhood activist, Anas Altikriti, who has called the murder of coalition troops in Iraq “legitimate“. The EMRC Board includes Bashir Nafi, who a decade ago was a senior operative of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group, indicted in the United States.

As the CST was not a party to this litigation, it did not have the opportunity to rebut the spin of the Salah team:

Salah’s defence called two witnesses, Professor David Miller of the Spinwatch campaign group and former police officer Bob Lambert, both of whom contested CST’s expertise in this area. The judgement notes their claim that CST “failed to distinguish between anti-Semitism and criticism of the actions of the Israeli State and therefore gives an unbalanced perspective”, but that both Miller and Lambert accepted it was not “improper for the Secretary of State to seek the views of the CST in this matter”. Needless to say, CST totally rejects the claims of Miller and Lambert that we fail to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of Israel. OurAntisemitic Incident Reportsand Antisemitic Discourse Reports (both available here) lay out this distinction in great detail. However, we were not afforded an opportunity to defend CST’s position during the hearing and no witnesses were called by the Home Secretary’s lawyers to counter their claims. Consequently, CST’s rejection of Miller and Lambert’s ‘expertise’ was not heard in court and is not in the ruling.

Quite apart from the pathetic attempt to attack The CST, Salah’s substantive case was all over the place. He hopped from one lie to another. I’d imagine that his legal team was tearing their hair out by the end of the case:

When these allegations were first aired, Salah denied having written the poem; denied making the blood libel comment; denied facing any charges in Israel; and denied any links to Hamas. Only after CST provided evidence to the contrary, did Salah admit to having written the poem and making the blood libel comment, and argued instead that CST’s interpretation of those texts was wrong. He also admitted his conviction for funding organisations linked to Hamas, but claimed this was for “charitable and humanitarian purposes.”

I’d like just to focus on one aspect of Raed Salah’s inconsistent and shifting defence, in this post. You’ll remember that one of the many pieces of evidence uncovered to illustrate the nature of Raed Salah’s racism was a poem that he had written, in which he says:

“You are the germs of all times. The Creator had deemed you to be monkeys and losers.”

One newspaper report had inserted the word “[The Jews]” in square brackets into its translation of the poem. Initially, Raed Salah accepted that this poem was antisemitic and denied authorship of it:

The British press had circulated accusations of an anti-Semitic “poem” they attributed to Salah. But under instruction from Salah, Husain emphasized he absolutely denies writing the poem and “finds it offensive” because of its anti-Semitic content.

Unfortunately, evidence then emerged that established that the poem was indeed published, under Raed Salah’s name. The defence then shifted to a different lie: that the poem was about “all oppression” and not really Jews at all.

Lying is a strategy employed without the slightest shame, not simply by Raed Salah, but by his supporters. Have a read of MEMO’s press release, desperately trying to spin their hero’s utter failure, by misrepresenting the content of the judgement. I’ve read the judgement, and the attempt to present the court’s recital of legal arguments as findings in Salah’s favour is both pathetic and dishonest.

Popout

Now, here’s a question for you.

If a person denies clear evidence of racism, defends a racist, and attacks a leading anti-racist institution, is it fair to conclude that they are in fact a racist?

I ask, because Raed Salah attracted a large number of supporters and admirers, who rushed to his defence, during the course of his self-imposed stay in the United Kingdom.

One by one, we plan to examine the role of each of these institutions and individuals in the Raed Salah saga.

The responsibility is on the US and Pakistan governments, together, to try and reduce the numbers of these deaths; a point made by Christopher Rogers of CIVIC:

In a recent study by the Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict (CIVIC), report author Christopher Rogers said: “It’s almost certain that US drone strikes are causing more civilian casualties than the US has thus far admitted”.

He told Channel 4 News “faulty intelligence” could be leading to civilian deaths.

He said: “In our research… in a number of instances there was no doubt that faulty ‘intel’ was to blame – hitting a pro-government peace committee member’s house, for instance. In other cases, though victims stated that militants were indeed killed in the strike, non-combatant civilians were hit collaterally. i.e. a militant car passing by a house that collapsed from the blast.”

He added: “In the end, it’s for the US and Pakistan to demonstrate and prove that such low civilian casualty rates are indeed being achieved – the responsibility is on them.”

This is true in spite of the fact many cluebots of the far-left and Islamist variety will be using these deaths to score political points based on the “imperialist” and “kuffar” war waged by the US. They tend to forget that Pakistan has as big a role to play as the US to provide the necessary intelligence for drone strikes to be made.

Here’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Islamism’s favourite democratic politician, talking big on the issue of Palestinian self-determination:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday told Arab foreign ministers in Cairo that recognition of a Palestinian state was “not an option but an obligation”.

“It’s time to raise the Palestinian flag at the United Nations,” Mr Erdogan told his audience. “Let’s raise the Palestinian flag and let that flag be the symbol of peace and justice in the Middle East.”

The prime minister’s appeal significantly raised the diplomatic temperature days before Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, is due formally to submit his statehood initiative to the Security Council.

And here’s where his actions speak louder than words on the issue of Kurdish self-determination:

Turkish troops backed by fighter jets and helicopter gunships have pursued Kurdish rebels into Iraq.

It follows overnight attacks on military installations in Hakkari province, near the Iraqi border, which killed at least 24 Turkish soldiers.

The attacks are thought to have inflicted the biggest loss on Turkish forces since 1993 and President Abdullah Gul has vowed to avenge them.

In recent months, violence between the army and Kurdish rebels has mounted.

The attacks come a day after a blast in the south-east Bitlis province killed five police officers and three others.

Dozens of members of the country’s security forces, and at least 17 civilians, have been killed since mid-July.

Turkey has responded with a police crackdown on suspected rebel sympathisers and air strikes on Kurdish sites in northern Iraq. Scores of insurgents have died.

So is the Islamist administration running Turkish a shower of hypocrites or is it just an abomination?

Daud writes that Lambert is the victim of a “smear campaign” by neocons and makes this amazing claim:

“If at any point [Lambert] was involved in the infiltration of legitimate protest and political groups while being a special branch officer, then that was wrong. That being said, the political authors of such a policy should bear the full responsibility for it and not any single officer.”

Yes Uncle Daud, because Britain is a police state of the Syrian kind in which the government is involved with running operational policing tactics!

More hilarious even than Daud’s paranoiac bellowing are the readers’ comments that follow. This one by AbuJasoos, who refers to the article’s subtitle “Those of us who worked with Lambert knew of his police past. What matters is how his approach kept Muslims from extremism”:

But Daud

1. You run MEMO, which is a pro-Hamas organisation

2. You support Raed Salah who claimed that Jews were forewarned of 9/11 and stayed away from the WTC, and also said:

We have never allowed ourselves, and listen well, we have never allowed ourselves to knead the bread for the breaking of the fast during the blessed month of Ramadan with the blood of the children. And if someone wants a wider explanation, you should ask what used to happen to some of the children of Europe, whose blood would be mixed in the dough of the holy bread. God all mighty, is this religion? Is this what God wants? God will confront you for what you are doing.

Then , when challenged in court about this obvious reference to the canard that Jews kill children to mix their blood into Passover matzohs… claimed that he was actually talking about the Spanish Inquisition!!

3. You signed the Istanbul Declaration, at a conference of Muslim Brotherhood groups, to support Hamas. The Istanbul Declaration contains a threat of terrorism. Both Labour and the Coalition will not have anything to do with the Muslim Council of Britain for this reason.

So, in what sense are you in a position to speak about “extremism”?

More in the same vein in the comments thread.

First off, someone who goes by the nom du guerre of ‘Abu Abdullah Al-Britani’:

And followed by Sheikh Andy Al-DailyMail Chaudri:

Faith Matters is launching its paper that offers a brief insight into the Secular reforms of the Ottoman Empire, in order to analyse and debunk claims by extreme groups like Al Qaeda of it being an Islamic Caliphate, strictly governed by Shariah Law. The Ottoman Empire is often presented, by such groups as a model political system upon which to re-build a global Caliphate. Osama bin Laden marked the decline of the Ottoman Empire as the fall of Islam – that the Islamic world “has been tasting this humiliation and this degradation for more than 80 years” and that “the righteous Khilafah will return with the permission of Allah”. Through the implementation of an Islamic legal and political system, extreme groups who mis-use the Islamic faith call for the rejection of liberal values and the current systems in place, which do not fundamentally clash with Islam.

The short paper authored by Ishtiaq Hussain who has long studied such ideologies, offers a new challenge to these claims, arguing that the Ottoman Empire bares little resemblance to the model proposed by such groups.  In focusing on the period known as the Tanzimat (1839-1876), Hussain shows that the Ottomans were in fact attempting to secularise their laws and state institutions rather than implementing religious laws into State laws.

These are some of the key findings in the report which show that:

• Homosexuality was decriminalised
• Ottoman society in general moved away from punishments such as stoning
• The death penalty for Apostasy was not implemented

Islamists often bypass these facts and use a warped interpretation of history in order to weave their own narrative into mainstream debate; using their own projected picture of a perfect Ottoman society living under a deeply rigid interpretation of Shariah Law in order to argue for the building of a modern day Islamic Caliphate. Those who spin this historical account help to prop up a narrative used as an ideological basis for extremism. The attacks of 9/11 were even marked by Bin Laden as “a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous caliphate”.  Until now, their account has been met with little intellectual resistance.

This important paper is the first of its kind to expose and dismantle the Islamist historical account of the Ottoman Empire. Alongside the Government’s new Prevent Strategy focusing on extremism in schools, online and at universities,  Hussain creates a vehicle upon which to tackle extremists who adopt this historical narrative in order to justify their intolerant and right-wing ideology.

By debunking one of the fundamental layers of Islamist narrative, this paper provides an opportunity for debate and discussion within the public sphere. It also supports those civil society organisations and policy makers who defend liberal democratic values that underpin communities in Britain and also provides another tool for Muslims to counter the small yet vocal groups who espouse such a warped interpretation of the Ottoman Empire and the Khilafah. We also hope that it counters those who lump all Muslim communities together and who undermine the history of majority Muslim countries as places where pluralism was alive and thriving.

The report is now available to download from Faith Matters website.

On Monday, British Islamists and their supporters under the banner of the Bangladesh Crisis Group gathered at the London Muslim Centre to preach to their flock that Bangladesh was committing serious human rights abuses in their desire to finally try the perpetrators of the genocide of 1971.

This group of supporters of radical Islamism have finally crossed the Rubicon and they have potentially shot themselves in the foot by amassing Jamaat and Muslim Brotherhood leaders together. Strategically, for them, it is bad to inject them into the highly contentious issue of their fellow Islamists committing genocide in Bangladesh. The genocide happened. It’s been well documented. Arguing against it is like trying to push the tide back. It’s irrational. It obviously has Islamist leaders worried. They are claiming there are mass human rights abuses by the Bangladesh government and that there is massive US counter-terrorism involvement in the tribunals as a way of gathering support from useful idiots in Britain’s academia.

Bangladesh does lag behind in human rights, it is undeniable, but it’s usually down to corruption, lack of education on procedure and ethics which is mainly through a lack of finances. They haven’t got the money. It shouldn’t be an excuse, but it’s reality. To think that Bangladesh, which is still one of the poorest nations in the world, can have a model police force beyond reproach is wishful thinking. The scandals around Rupert Murdoch and News International has show that even the highly developed and politically corrected, brow beat Metropolitan Police Force at Scotland Yard aren’t beyond temptation.

Bob Lambert, an ex-Special Branch Officer and ex head of the Muslim Contact Unit (MCU) at the Met gave a speech at the event. He has been one of the leading lights, or probably more accurate the last beacon of hope, for Islamists in the remnants of Londonistan. He wants to retain the policy of allowing radical Islamists to have London as their centre of operations away from the Middle East and South Asia. He seems to think there is a wide gulf between Islamists and Salafists, but in reality this isn’t the case. It’s a false debate.

Osama Bin Laden the worlds most celebrated Salafist leader has pumped money into Pakistani political parties in the past. Salafists don’t believe in democracy. They aren’t allowed to have any part in elections. It’s Haraam (forbidden) in Islamic law. Lamberts narrative has major holes in it. This means Bin Laden was a hypocrite or the religious side of Islamist terrorism has been overplayed. Lambert reckons that “moderate” Islamists are an effective counter-balance to Salafists. Has Lambert and other Western academics been sucked into a false and misleading debate and been played for fools? Yes, I would argue they have. Lambert is still trying to cling onto his woeful theory. Islamists and the ignorant are still his major audience. Judging by the content of the speeches at the event on Monday the lack of knowledge on Bangladesh is clearly apparent from the non-Islamist speakers. So, why did they wade into it?

The covenant of security which was believed to have existed between the British Government and Islamists before 9/11 was half torpedoed when Tony Blair joined the US led war on terror. Blair’s bi-polar policy against radical Islamism was half-cocked he believed he could launch dodgy invasions of Muslim countries, yet leave British Islamist figures and institutes that were suspected of supporting terrorism untouched. The British government should have upped its efforts to do its own spring cleaning while the Arab Spring was at its height. They hinted at it with a review of Project Contest, the government’s counter-terrorism strategy. This would have helped to level the playing field for all political parties in the Middle East and South Asia. Londonistan will be important in the future of the Muslim world and will undoubtedly have an impact on which way the wind eventually blows.

Lambert thinks he’s a realist and a good attentive listener: a new breed of copper for a new way of policing. When he worked for the Metropolitan Police he was not the, “lock-them-up-throw-away-the-key” type of law enforcement official. He likes to think he’s a thinker. He rightly believes that crimes, mainly terrorism, often have more complex psychosocial factors. Irish Republicans had legitimate grievances and violence came from it. Talking to Sinn Fein and addressing the issues of Northern Irish Republican was a noble way to end a protracted conflict driven by sectarian hatred and distrust. Conflict resolution and dialogue was a good thing. It wasn’t appeasement. It wasn’t as simple as allowing terrorists to get away with murder. But, there aren’t many parallels between Irish Republicans and Islamists. Hugging an Islamist won’t work. The Pentagon even tried it with the late terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki in the early years. It failed.

Islamists like to latch onto divisive causes and make them worse. Hijacking others causes. Islamists certainly haven’t enjoyed great public support in the Muslim world, even though they have been exceptions such as in Algeria, Gaza and Sudan. It is a bit unfair and premature to say that because democracy hasn’t been allowed to flourish there. There is one thing that Islamists thrive on and that is violence. They, like other extremists, need conflict. Hamas showed that they are perfectly willing to bring pain on their populations if they can get some kind of political reward for it. Get a suicide bomber to attack Israelis, let the Israeli’s respond (mostly, I concede disproportionately) and let your charity fronts help the victims. It proved to be a winning political formula for Hamas. They cynically keep the cycle of the violence going. They use jingoism and violent racist rhetoric to increase hate and ignorance. Then claim they are defending their populations from aggression. Pakistan’s military, religious parties and dreaded ISI have the same strategy.

A major worry for outsiders looking at the event is that speakers and organisers at the event gave thinly veiled threats of pushing Bangladesh into a revolution or their “own Arab Spring” or “Asian Spring” which is highly misguided and dangerous. It’s also a highly undemocratic charge and smacks of irrational arrogance. I wonder what the late Edward Said would have made of it. I bet he would have asked Lambert for a quiet word.

Bob Lambert, Toby Cadman and others should have stayed away from the event as a result of this key demand. The promotional literature clearly pointed this was the conference’s main objective. If I was advising the Government of Bangladesh, I certainly wouldn’t give Toby Cadman a visa to enter the country now he’s spoken on this platform. Islamists and their apologists aren’t democrats. They don’t care about people’s needs or their franchise. They ignore it. The apologists have narrow minded short-term goals which would lock countries like Bangladesh into uneasy alliances and irrational compromises with Islamists. The people of Bangladesh have spoken, they don’t want radicalism in Bangladesh but do people like Bob Lambert and Oliver McTernan ever care to listen to the people?

Bangladesh had elections and the overwhelming majority of Bangladeshis want the end to the “Culture of Impunity” and believe the war crimes tribunals are the start of this process. But, what do you expect from Islamists and their supporters? If the ballot box fails and justice starts to creep up on them, they believe it’s time to pull down civil and political society and rebuild it in their own warped image.

If Lambert and Co want to build lasting bridges they should get their Islamist friends to renounce the worst of their ideology and apologise. They need to take responsibilities for their crimes. It will give them much need credibility and their detractors confidence in the future. Sometimes, only justice can steer you through the complexities of conflict resolution. If you try to subvert that and the truth you will always fail to create a lasting solution. Papering over cracks is often needed in conflict resolution, but in Bangladesh, Jamaat-i-Islami broke the foundations. They are going to have to face reality.

Last night I went along to a political rally organised by the Bangladesh Crisis Group which is an offshoot of the British Jamaat-e-Islam front, Islamic Forum Europe. I arrived at the Water Lily Centre which was the advertised venue to be told that the event had been moved to the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel. It was later expressed in the rally that the meeting had been moved because of “political pressure”. My guess is that the Water Lily Centre, which is controlled by Awami League supporters, decided not to host any political lobby involving Toby Cadman in case it irritated their leaders in Awami League HQ in Dhaka.

I thought that it was fitting that the rally had been moved back to London Muslim Centre, the nerve centre of the Jamaat-e-Islam in the UK. After all, it was the DCLG which correctly observed that the ELM/LMC is the base for Jamaat-e-Islami in the UK.

The attendance was very good, with more than 350 people in the “men’s section” alone and more upstairs in the “lady’s section” in the LMC. The rally kicked off just after the sunset prayer, with a reading of an apology from Kemal Helbawy, the chair of the Bangladesh Crisis Group, who excused himself for his absence because he was in Cairo. Helbawy is a member of the Egyptian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood and has advocated the justification for killing children. It is, therefore, worthwhile to note that the Jamaat-Ikhwan alliance here and also the incongruity of having someone with his views proffering advice on human rights.

There were a total of 17 speakers from the initial advertised roster of 21.

The first to speak was Bob Lambert of the European Muslim Research Centre. Lambert was good enough to confess at the onset that he had never been to Bangladesh and had limited knowledge of the facts in Bangladesh first hand. He used the opportunity to discuss the “failures of the War on Terror” and to plug his new book.

Next was Moazzam Begg, who needs no introduction to those concerned with counter-terrorism in this country, who had nothing specific to say about the situation in Bangladesh but instead spoke about his “work in Libya”. He set forth a polemical rant about “oppression of the Muslims” which had everyone in the room cheering enthusiastically.

“What you’re seeing happening in Bangladesh are the birth pangs. You can see that the most demonised organisations of the world are the Muslim organisations. Everywhere you go, east, west, Islamic countries or not. And here you see in Bangladesh, the Jamaat-e-Islami, that is being demonised, that its activists are being imprisoned. Why? The reason is the same reason why Ben Ali captured, tortured and beat the people from the An-Nahda party. The same reason why Ghaddafi captured and tortured the people from the Islamic groups there. The same reason why Hosni Mubarak tortured and imprisoned the people from the Islamic groups there. For fear of legitimate opposition that had tangible abilities to challenge the status quo, i.e. they are afraid.”

Next to speak was Toby Cadman, and it is his speech that I waited to hear with interest. Cadman is the British barrister representing the five leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islam charged by the War Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. I wanted to know why a barrister was appearing at a political rally with Islamists and the supporters of war criminals. He stressed early on that he was not opposed to the Tribunal but had deep misgivings that his clients may not be receiving a fair trial in Dhaka.

“As the other speakers have said, Bangladesh is entering a very, very dangerous period. It’s not just the Tribunal. Now I’m just here to speak about the wider political issues because that’s not what I’m instructed to do. My job is to represent those currently detained and those facing allegations and, as I said, I will continue to do that. But that also involves discussing the wider political issues. The complete breakdown in democracy, the barring of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Now the wider political issues, that falls under the responsibility of a large number of international organisations. That’s not for me to get into as a lawyer. And what I’ve been doing is calling on these organisations to engage on a diplomatic level with Bangladesh to resolve these problems before it transcends into a humanitarian crisis. I think we’re on the brink of that right now. Some of the other speakers have already mentioned that. But as I say, those are the issues that need to be addressed by the international community. This government in particular, my government needs to step up and recognise that there is a serious problem.”

As Jamaat-e-Islam’s barrister, Toby Cadman is right to draw out any failures in due process and judicial norms by the War Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. However, here in London, he is sharing a platform with political groups who have been involved with crimes against humanity, sectarian violence, terrorism and human rights abuses of their own in Bangladesh and elsewhere. It is correct that people should speak out against the use of special security forces used by successive governments of Bangladesh which has led to various humanitarian abuses. But for an international barrister to point out these political and human rights abuses in Bangladesh, which are legion, and to conflate them with the due process obligations of the Tribunal is politicking and simply disgraceful.

Next to speak was Oliver McTernan, who spoke about the human rights abuses in Bangladesh in the most abstract terms and admitted that he had only educated himself on the issues prior to attending the rally, from the internet.

Farooq Murad of the MCB spoke next. Murad’s father, Khurram Murad, was the vice-Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and, as you would expect from the MCB, used arresting phrases to suggest that the whole matter was an international religious struggle against the oppression of Muslims:

“What is happening in Bangladesh now is an insult to the Ummah”

Imam Hazim Fazlic who is from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and is an imam in Birmingham, was next to speak. One of the points he made was that he hoped that Bangladesh would be the subject of some kind of humanitarian intervention by the international community, similar to Bosnia. This was not met with a very enthusiastic response from the audience.

Walid Saffour, of the Syrian Human Rights Committee, ended his speech with these words:

“May God protect our Maulana Delwar Hussein Sayeedi!”

This caused a full-throated cheer from the ELM audience, a response which made me sick to my stomach. Delwar Hussein Sayeedi stands accused in Bangladesh charged with looting, plundering, arson and rape of members of the Hindu minority. A full account of his crimes and the evidence brought to the Tribunal can be found here.

Other speakers who also addressed the LMC last night were Jonathan Fryer and Dr Noureddin Meladi. Fryer mentioned the human rights abuses in Bangladesh perpetrated by the Rapid Action Battalion, an elite crime force which has been responsible for many extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh.

Next to speak was Mahidur Rahman, who is the ‘Chief Coordinator’ of the UK chapter of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) in the UK. For some reason, Mahidur Rahman failed to mention that it was his party, the BNP, which was responsible for the creation of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). It was under the BNP government that RAB had become a “government death squad” in 2006, which a US human rights group accused of being responsible for killing 350 suspects in custody.

Mahidur Rahman made no mention of this, choosing instead to lay the blame of the RAB’s human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings firmly and in gross partisan manner on the Awami League instead.

We next had Noureddin Miladi, a Tunisian who suggested this little Islamist nugget of wisdom:

“[Democracy] as has been going for the last forty years on Bangladesh, has been something imposed from above. And all the rulers have, in a way, sustained by western powers because they serve their agenda of the western powers”

Musleh Faradhi the leader of the IFE spoke next. In addition to suggesting that the War Crimes Tribunal is some kind of Neocon conspiracy ordained by George Bush, he dishonestly mangled an historical fact:

“They found something special for Bangladesh and that is war crimes and war criminals. Because they know, because their gurus told them the bigger the issue that you raise, the young people of Bangladesh will become very emotional. They would think ‘How can these people be the enemy of the country, how can a group of people work against the independence of the country?’

Therefore they have found an issue and they have tried to make an issue of something that was not an issue. Because Bangladesh reconciled with what happened in 1971. People who were criminals, they were tried and the people who were not criminals were forgiven by the founder of the nation. But why it has come up after forty years? Only because they want to suppress opposition”

This is a blatant lie made here by Faradhi. It is his assertion that criminals were tried in 1971. But war criminals have not faced judicial proceedings until now. Perhaps he should have listened to his colleage, Toby Cadman, who had just previously said on the same platform:

“It’s important that Bangladesh, as a nation, brings an end to this particular chapter and brings an end to impunity. It has an obligation under international law to do this. It also has an obligation under international law to do it properly.”

And that is exactly what should be done. And it would be advisable that the Jamaat-e-Islami activists of the East London Mosque and the Islamic Forum Europe and their various friends who all spoke at the meeting yesterday accept that justice be served by supporting the judicial processes in Bangladesh under the War Crimes Tribunal.

It is also imperative that the War Crimes Tribunal itself comply to all international judicial process and norms so that the accused can get a fair trial.