FYI – Clarity on repeatedly published lies about me.
As many of you will know –
I have a Wikipedia page – yep I do! Quite a popular one as it turns out given
the trouble some individuals take to rehashing oft-repeated lies about me. I’m
just not sure which one of my greatest ‘fans’ dedicates their time to set this
up (someone needs to get a life) but let me make some corrections on the
content there as well some other comments that are regurgitated about me all
too frequently as if repeating them will give them the force of truth.
I have made these clarifications
on numerous platforms and programmes but I realised that I still need to put
this down on paper, so to speak. So here goes:
Wikipedia
page
1.
Muslim
Safety Forum – “Ali left the post of chairman in 2008, then resigned entirely
from MSF in 2009 after publicity over his extremist comments. In July 2010, he
was reinstated as MSF’s chairman.”
My
term as Chair of the Muslim Safety Forum (MSF) ended in 2008. I never resigned
from the MSF, as minutes from the MSF meetings will prove, as well as minutes
of meetings with the Police at New Scotland Yard which took place around this
time. I guess to have been re-elected in 2010 is a form of reinstatement! The
lie about my resignation was to add credence to the smear that I had done
something wrong and was forced to resign. That was not the case at all as the
facts will bear out.
2.
Links
to Al-Qaida – “Ali has stated that he has attended talks with Abu Qatada
of al-Qaeda.
In a 2008 IFE blog, Ali called al-Qaeda's Anwar Al-Awlaki
"one of my favourite scholars and speakers". Ali has denied that the 2008 Mumbai attacks were terrorism.”
Abu
Qatada:
Yes I attended a seminar
in the late 80’s/early 90’s where Abu Qatada was one of the speakers. FYI – Abu
Qatada was not a representative of Al Qaeda but just a Muslim speaker. He was
not under any suspicion nor was there any criminal investigation about him at
the time which might have merited caution. More importantly, attending a public
meeting is no crime no matter who is on the speaker’s platform. This lazy and
nefarious link by association is a desperate attempt to smear my character and
the work I have been doing. What shall we make of those journalists that had
lunch, dinner or worked with Jimmy Saville or attended parties he hosted, do we
label them as paedophiles, simply due to them being there? Of course we don’t
and rightly so.
Anwar
Al-Awlaki:
Anwar Al-Awlaki was an
imam and religious scholar who at one time served as a chaplain at George
Washington University. He has been the subject of some controversy following
his imprisonment in Yemen in 2006. This is the same Al-Awlaki who respected by
the US Government who engaged him on a number of the outreach initiatives after
9/11 participating in various programs which culminated in him being invited to
lunch at the US Department of Defense.
So it would seem the US
government once thought highly of him, just as I did. I have distanced myself
from his comments following his incarceration in Yemen in 2006, like many
others who knew him, including the US government, yet this context is missing
and not referenced in any of the remarks since published about my having spoken
highly of him. The omission of my public disassociation with the person
Al-Awlaki later became is a deliberate attempt to tell one fragment of the
truth not the “whole truth”.
Mumbai
attacks:
This comment refers to an
article where I discussed the quick and easy labelling of the Mumbai atrocity as
a terrorist incident. The impression given is that I did not condemn this
incident, which I actually, categorically did. My remarks about the kneejerk
labelling of some atrocities as ‘terrorism’ but not others is not new nor is it
unique to Muslims. When others have questioned the media’s labelling of an
incident as ‘terrorism’, for reasons good or ill, their views are regarded as a
legitimate contribution to the debate on nomenclature and its uses. Why am I,
as a Muslim, not permitted to contribute to this debate and why, when Muslims
question if ‘terrorism’ is the correct appellation for an atrocity are we
demonised as diminishing the significance of a heinous crime? What’s good for the
goose, is good for the gander – unless you’re a Muslim of course.
Killing
of British troops:
I have never called for the
killing of British troops.
I challenge anyone to produce the evidence that suggests I have uttered any
such words. What is used to smear me is the fact that I quoted from Abdullah
Azzam’s son in a reference to the Iraq war and the resistance to the Allied
attack against Saddam Hussein. He said: "If
I saw an American or British man wearing a soldier's uniform inside Iraq I
would kill him because that is my obligation. If I found the same soldier over
the border in Jordan I wouldn't touch him. In Iraq he is a fighter and an
occupier, here he is not. This is my religion and I respect this as the main
instruction in my religion for jihad." The Irish Times
Compare this his original
statement as found in the Irish Times to what Andrew Gilligan writes "If I saw an American or British man
wearing a soldier's uniform inside Iraq, I would kill him because that is my
obligation ... I respect this as the main instruction in my religion for
jihad."
He completely
misrepresents the statement and the point I was making in my article about war,
the concept of the ‘theatre of war’ and combatants and non-combatants. I was
making no such claims to the legitimate targeting of British soldiers. Nor was
I defending, in citing from Abdullah Azzam’s son’s comments, the killing of
British troops in Iraq. Again, this is another tedious act of smearing by
association, in this case by quoting someone without a disclaimer but perhaps
Mary Fitzgerald, who wrote the article for the Irish Times, is saved from
having to offer such a disclaimer because she isn’t a Muslim?
Okay so that covers the
Wikipedia page. Now to other oft repeated smears:
Democracy:
In an article dated July
2010, Andrew Gilligan writes that I said "Democracy, if it means not
implementing the shari'ah, of course nobody agrees with that."
This was broadcast on
Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, where an undercover reporter followed me
around for 8 months. Lucky me!
For those who haven’t seen
it, the secretly filmed scene is of myself with my colleagues broadcasting our
live (let me say that again LIVE) radio show which was being streamed online.
The comment was in response to a caller who asked a question about democracy in
a Muslim majority country and whether I support it. I answered yes of course
and I gave the example of how some of the Muslim rulers were elected in history.
The caller then asked would people, that is Muslim people in a Muslim majority
country accept democracy if it didn’t implement shari’ah – to which I answered
of course they wouldn’t. You see, the context here is missing in the smears Gilligan
puts about on me.
There is a more
significant dimension to the question of applying religious law and it isn’t
specific to Muslim majority countries, it occurs in debates in non-Muslim
majority countries too. During the passage of the Same Sex marriage Bill the
Christian churches organised a campaign (Coalition 4 Marriage) to reject the
legislation citing Biblical references on the definition of marriage (Genesis
2; Matthew 19:5; Mark 10:7; Ephesians 5:31) in opposition to the Government’s
proposals to ‘redefine’ marriage by permitting same sex unions. Some Christians
also circulated leaflets during the 2015 general election encouraging voters
not to elect those incumbent MPs who supported the Same Sex Marriage Bill.
If Christians are free to
espouse views about laws in a democratic society that they feel go against
Biblical law, why not Muslims? And surely the purpose of a democratic society
is to allow for different points of view to be expressed, within the law?
What exactly is wrong with
Muslims who live in a Muslim majority country electing someone who will
implement Shari’ah? Or are Muslim countries not allowed to make their own choices
in governance and Muslim voters not allowed to express their support or
disapproval through the ballot box?
Hamas:
Another favourite attack
on me is that I support Hamas. Apparently Hamas is a ‘terrorist organisation’ –
not so according to the proscribed list of Terrorist organisations on the Home Office website.
Indeed, as we speak our
ministers and mandarins are meeting with Hamas on a regular basis. And a
previous select committee on Foreign Affairs has actually advised Her Majesty’s
Government to engage ‘moderate elements’ within Hamas in peace talks in order
to assure a lasting, durable peace in the resolving the Middle East conflict.
The President of the International Crisis Group, Louise Arbour, made a similar
argument 5 years ago after the Mavi Marmara incident.
The EU was forced to
remove Hamas from its list of ‘terrorist organisations’ last year after the
EU’s general court ruled that its designation was "based not on acts
examined and confirmed in decisions of competent authorities but on factual
imputations derived from the press and the internet".
It is quite pitiful that
‘investigative’ journalists cannot even be relied upon to corroborate their
claims about ‘terrorist’ organisations instead of taking their cue from lobbies
who actively pursue the delegitimisation of Hamas’s electoral victory.
What’s
it all about?
The purpose of smearing me
and other Muslim activists and organisations is best explained in the report titled
“The Cold War on British Muslims” by Tom Mills, Tom Griffin and David Miller of
SpinWatch – have read of it here.
Look out for the seminars on this
subject coming to a place near you, soon!
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