Iranian government employee involved in British ‘Prevent’ programme

This is a guest post by Sheikh Spear

Iran is a brutal theocratic dictatorship that executes minors, stones adulterous women to death, persecutes religious and ethnic minorities and murders and imprisons non-violent protestors for calling for free and fair elections.

It is also not exactly supportive of the UK’s struggle against Islamist extremism. The Iranian government is widely believed to have supplied Iraqi insurgents with many of the roadside bombs that killed British soldiers in Iraq, Iran’s leaders have also called for the extrajudicial murder of a British novelist and funded London-based radical Islamist outfits such as the comically misnamed Islamic Human Rights Commission.

One would think, therefore, that the British government would regard employees of the Iranian government as being less than ideal partners for the UK domestic ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ programme.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

One of the UK government’s flagship counter-extremism programmes is the Radical Middle Way (RMW) which was established with £460,000 of government money in 2005 by former members of Q-News magazine, namely Fuad Nahdi, Abdul Rehman Malik and Malik’s wife Fareena Alam.

Fareena Alam first shot to fame two days after the 9-11 when she told a former US ambassador in a now-notorious edition of BBC Question Time that the US had deserved for the attacks because of its support for Israel, which she described as a ‘terrorist’ state.

Of the resulting media furore, she later said that ‘I think I got picked on in the papers because I had tanned skin, I’m a Muslim, a woman and I was wearing a headscarf’ and that ‘If it was untimely, it was the BBC’s fault for running it two days after the attack’.

Despite this, Alam became one of the RMW’s most main public faces. She also chaired a number of the group’s public events, including one event in April 2008 that included Fuad Nahdi’s wife, Humera Khan, and Catherine Heseltine, from the anti-Semitic MPACUK organisation.

In around mid-2008, however, Alam joined Press TV, the Iranian government-run and –funded propaganda station, as a reporter. She immediately began producing a stream of blatantly one-sided TV pieces that parroted the Iranian government’s line.

For instance, in one story nominally about the Iraqi president’s visit to London, Alam concluded that “Maliki’s visit to London occurred on the day that British troops started to finally withdraw from Iraq after six years. Most Iraqis will be glad to see the back of them and if they return in business suits instead of jackboots, their welcome will be far from certain.”

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Leaving aside her sweeping assumption that ‘most Iraqis will be glad to see the back of them’, it is striking that Alam used the word ‘jackboots’ in reference to British troops. As far as I am used ‘jackboots’ references are used almost solely to make Nazi comparisons. Does Fareena Alam really think that British troops are comparable with the Nazis? And if she does, what does she make of the totalitarian and undemocratic Iranian government that pays her wages?

Despite producing such anti-British propaganda on behalf of the Iranian government, Alam has remained one of the RMW’s public faces. For instance, in May 2009, she chaired an RMW event called ‘Wired Warriors for the soul of Islam’ featuring Muslim bloggers. This event was presumably funded through the £350,000 that the Department for Communities and Local Government gave to RMW during 6-month period from October 2008 to April 2009.

Alam, while working for the Iranian government, also remained closely involved in the RMW’s day-to-day administration. In April this year, for instance, she posted on the RMW’s facebook page to thank the group’s followers for RSVP-ing to the group’s upcoming events and telling them about RMW’s future plans:

Since starting work for Press TV, she has also written she written on the group’s facebook page that RMW had joined twitter, telling readers to “follow us” – by which she presumably means the RMW rather than Press TV:

Of course, the RMW could argue that Alam was not making these statements on behalf of the group and has been doing so without its knowledge. I don’t believe that this is the case however – RMW employees could hardly fail to notice that she is regularly posting in the group’s name on their popular facebook page.

And even if this is the case, then why is Alam also one of only 7 administrators in the group’s facebook page – one of its main points of contact with its youthful audience – if she is no longer seen as being part of RMW?

Now, I’m sure that Fareena is a lovely person in many ways. And I also appreciate that because her husband, Abdul Rehman Malik, is heavily involved in RMW, it is difficult for her to sever contact with the group.

At the same time, however, it is manifestly insane that an Iranian government employee, especially one who works for Tehran’s main English language propaganda outlet and who compares British soldiers to fascist storm-troopers, should be involved in running the UK’s most lavishly-funded counter-extremism programme.