Harry’s Place

We have only begun to scratch the surface of Azad Ali’s worldview. 

Reading habibi’s piece, what struck me was not so much Mr Ali’s views. It is unsurprising that an active Islamist should want to persuade us that jihadism should really be thought of as a noble struggle for justice. What shocked me more, is the depth of Azad Ali’s involvement with official and liberal bodies.

• The Muslim Safety Forum, which Ali chaired, is “the key advisory body for the Metropolitan Police Service and Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) on issues concerning British Muslims”.
• Ali also sits on the Strategic Stop & Search Committee and Police Use of Firearms Group with the Met. Azad is also a member of the IPCC’s Community Advisory Group and the Home Office’s Trust and Confidence Community Panel.
• Ali is president of the Civil Service Islamic Society (patron and “ambassador”, Sir Gus O’Donnell)
• Ali is a National Council member of Liberty

At the same time as he sits on these bodies, Mr Ali promotes the politics of Jamaat-e-Islami, whose Islamic Forum Europe blog he contributes to. He is quite open about his political views. They are those the Islamist extreme right.

What this reminds me of, most forcefully, is the “discovery” after the fall of the USSR, that Soviet agents had infiltrated British Universities, public sector bodies, and political and campaigning organisations.

I have put “discovery” in speech marks, because it really was no surprise to anybody at all that these organisations had been infiltrated by extremists. After all, those who repeatedly justified the worst excesses of the USSR, attacked those who criticised the USSR as ‘fascists’, and attacked both liberal democracies, and the principle of liberal democracy hardly made a secret of their views. In fact, they were quite open about them. And - quelle surprise - a number of them turned out not simply to be supporters of the USSR and advocates of Stalinism, but employees of these repressive totalitarian regimes as well.

Here’s a BBC piece on the unmasking, after the failure of Communism, of a number of British agents, working for Soviet block countries. They include Vic Allen, who was a prominent activist and one time leadership candidate in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament:

Vic Allen, 77, a former National Council member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), said he had “no regrets” over providing information to the East German Stasi secret police.

The retired Leeds University professor, from Keighley, North Yorkshire, said he did pass on information about CND’s activities. But he said he considered that perfectly legitimate because he belonged to a pro-Soviet, pro-East German faction of the group.

He told BBC Two’s The Spying Game: “I have no shame. I feel no regrets about that at all.

“My only regret is that we didn’t succeed.”

He and the former editor of the left-wing newspaper Tribune Dick Clements, were in regular contact with the East German secret police, the Stasi, according to the security service’s files.

Here’s CND’s response:

CND members are not and never have been as naïve as the Sunday Telegraph suggests. We all knew where Vic stood - he was entitled to his views and we were entitled to ours. He most certainly did not ’swing CND behind the Soviets’ and nor did anyone else. CND was and remains independent of all governments and neither the Stasi, the KGB, the CIA nor our own MI5 have ever managed to change that.”

What a remarkable response that is. Vic Allen is a traitor, of course. But more than that, he was an open supporter of a murderous, horrendous, nightmarish political system. His colleagues in CND - and probably, to be frank, anybody who encountered him  - knew that this was where he stood. Were he an extreme right winger, a BNP member, he would have been ostracised. But somehow, this disgusting, evil man was mistaken by perfectly nice, middle of the road, liberal people for a comrade.

We’ve been here before.

Just as, in the past, Stalinists infiltrated progressive organisations with the intention of subverting or destroying them, those aligned with Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood are doing precisely the same. They’ve been doing it for at least a decade. Their feet are firmly under the table. 

How has this happened? There are, I think, three reasons. 

The first reason is that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-e-Islami have been promoted, successfully, as the “Islamists we can do business with”.

The Azad Ali article that we considered yesterday is on all fours with the promotion of the strategy. His line, you’ll remember, is that anti-extremism initiatives won’t work if you listen to Muslims who argue that Jihad is essentially about a spiritual struggle, and don’t acknowledge the importance of the military struggle (against British troops? Against the Shia?) in Iraq. He thinks we should take the our lead from the Al Qaeda ideologues, Abdullah Azzam and Anwar Al Awlaki. Above all, we shouldn’t look down on jihadism - instead we should think of it as a quest for “Justice”. A very particular kind of justice.

There are a depressingly large number of people out there who see nothing wrong with that line of argument. There is a line of thinking that is popular in parts of officialdom, and policywonkery, that Muslims are at any time, only minutes away from exploding, that their natural leadership is Al Qaeda, and that only last best hope - at home as well as abroad - is to make Jamaat-e-Islami, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood our best friends, in the hope that they’ll persuade Muslims to explode outside the United Kingdom only. This perspective is popular among some Foreign and Commonwealth Office types, who have a colonial mindset, and who naturally look for ‘headmen’ with whom they can do deals. It is also popular among white middle class and middle aged people who, quite frankly, don’t know that many Muslims socially, other than people who present themselves as “the leadership”. And “the leadership” in this country largely consists of a minority of ideologues aligned with Jamaat and the MB.

The second reason is that the democratic Left has lost its moral compass on Islamism, just as it did on Stalinism. If you were to show most people active on the Left, political writing that talked about the Norse-Celtic-Anglo-Saxon Racial Folk Community, and that referenced Mein Kampf, they’d quickly and correctly identify it as the product of a fascist movement, and avoid it like the plague. If you show them political writing that longs for the time that the Ummah will rise and create a glorious Caliphate and praises Abdullah Azzam and Anwar Al Awaki how many of them will recognise the writer as a supporter of jihadist politics? How many will appreciate what that means, or even be concerned about it? If you pointed out that a writer was an activist with Islamic Forum Europe, and therefore aligned with Jamaat-e-Islami, how many people would regard that as a problem?

The sad truth is, much of the progressive Left doesn’t have any problem with working with jihadists. Just as Vic Allen was no doubt thought of, by his colleagues, as ‘good old Vic, silly old Vic, always banging on about the revolution, but one of us’, Jamaat-e-Islami and Muslim Brotherhood activists are thought of as ‘good sorts, a bit religious, sometimes a little bit too impassioned, but basically on our side’. Their politics is contextualised as a form of anti-colonialism or a reaction to racism. Very occasionally, you get a little friction: as the Stalinists remember that they were on different sides when the USSR was fighting in Afghanistan. But, mostly, they rub along just fine.

The problem with both these justifications for engaging with extremists, is that they’re wrong. These guys have no interest in opposing imperialism, or creating a pluralist democratic society that respects human rights. They want to create a theocracy. They’re not our allies. They’re our enemy. We’re also dangerously mistaken to believe that the propagation of jihadist politics will have no consequences for this country, as long as each diatribe ends with the words, ‘remember kids, don’t try this in the United Kingdom’. It will, just as surely as a sustained campaign by a fascist group praising ‘our proud white soldiers in the coming race war’ will help to raise up a generation of racist terrorists.  We need to oppose these groups, not partner with them.

The third and final reason is, perhaps, the most worrying part of the story. Strong social and political bonds have now been formed between prominent Islamists and members of the police, the civil service, and progressive Left wing campaigning groups. Those connections give them a certain degree of immunity from criticism.

By “immunity”, what I mean is this. You’ve looked at what people like Azad Ali say on their blog, it seems a bit odd, but - you might ask yourself - if they were really as extreme as all that, would they be meeting the police, palling around with Sir Gus O’Donnell, being consulted on terrorism? If calling for a Caliphate and looking to Al Qaeda ideologues for inspiration was really that extreme, could such a person really have been elected to the National Council of Liberty?

Who are you going to believe - the people who run this country, the people who campaign for freedom, or some blogger with a bee in his bonnet about these things?

Working the system, gaining respectability, getting the great and the good to vouch for them, allows these groups to leverage their credibility and trustworthiness. Bangladeshis will tell you that the East London Mosque is the base of the fascist Jamaat-e-Islami political party. But nobody told the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, that when he toddled on on down to that establishment, to deliver the message that he saw nothing wrong at all with subjecting British Muslim women to family law Sharia courts.

Let’s have a quick look at some of Mr Ali’s achievements with the Muslim Safety Forum.

First, from The Times

POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

The first panel, expected to consist of four people, will be set up initially in London. Tomorrow representatives from police forces across England and Wales will decide whether to make the scheme national.

Muslim groups have welcomed the move, which is understood to be backed by Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner.

This week the Association of Chief Police Officers will discuss with MI5 and the Home Office whether to reveal to the panel intelligence information from the security service.

The idea came from the Metropolitan police and the Muslim Safety Forum (MSF), which works for better police-Muslim relations.  

This, from The Guardian:

The police are considering a proposal to let selected British Muslims examine the intelligence used to mount anti-terrorism raids before they take place, the Guardian has learned

The review includes members of the Muslim Safety Forum, which aims to improve relations between police and British Muslim communities.

Azad Ali, its chairman, said fresh measures, such as British Muslims being able to advise the police on their intelligence and how to act on it before any raid, must be found. “Greater cooperation with the police is possible, but it needs the police to take creative steps to build trust,” he said. “There are people keen to help the police, but episodes like Forest Gate and the way it was mishandled stoke up the mistrust.”

Or this:

[U]nder the stewardship of an able and energetic chairman, Azad Ali, a member of the Islamic Forum Europe, the MSF has become fully independent and developed a more proactive role involving closer liaison with the police. It has developed a protocol for cooperation with the police, which ensures more effective influence and access to senior police officers. It has now been able to open an office with a full-time staff member, thanks to a start-up grant from the Greater London Assembly.

We are a generation behind in this struggle, as we were a generation behind the struggle to keep Stalinists out of progressive, democratic and liberal politics.

Anyone who has been  to a protest or demonstration recently will know the absurd drill. The police construct a “protest pen” out of those interlocking metal fences and you’re expected to stand in it. These are usually constructed across the road or around the corner from the subject of your protest, so it is unlikely that they’ll even see - much less hear - your efforts. After an hour, you leave frustrated - knowing that while it as a worthwhile cause, your gesture was token at best.

A concern I have expressed for some time now has been that this inevitably will lead to an escalation of this type of confrontation. If peaceful protest is rendered impotent and ineffective by overzealous policing, then the only alternative can be violence.

In this case, it seems the police don’t take act act to stop events by public figure who encourage and glorify violence against lesbian and gay people either because they are institutionally homophobic themselves and simply don’t take threats to gay people as seriously as they now take racism; or because they don’t believe gay people will riot or plant bombs.

Therefore they encourage extremism because (a) peaceful avenues are frustrated and (b) there is a perception that only extremists get listened to.

I don’t know what to make of this state of affairs, but it is rather depressing. After days of trying to persuade the police that man who shrieks “FAGGOTS! I’LL KILL THEM ALL!” from the stage is not the best tonic for community cohesion, Peter Tatchell has now laid out these depressing options.

 Gays want riots to stop concert

New Scotland Yard: we ignore peaceful protests

Gays advised to bomb and burn to get police action

London – 21 November 2008

There are calls for gay people to riot on Sunday outside a concert in London by Jamaican reggae singer Bounty Killer, who urges his listeners to murder gays and lesbians.

The police say that unless there are threats of violent protests they will not cancel the concert.

If protests go ahead outside the venue on Sunday, there are fears of bloody confrontation, given that many of Bounty Killer’s fans are gang members, have guns and knives and are violently homophobic.

“We have been swamped with calls from gays and lesbians who are urging violent protests to stop Bounty Killer’s concert going ahead,” said Peter Tatchell, coordinator of OutRage! and the Stop Murder Music
Campaign.

“Gay people are really angry. Regardless of what I say, some are ready to break the law. They say it is self-defence of the gay community.

“Since the police won’t enforce the law to stop Bounty Killer, some people want to take the law into their own hands.

“No one wants violence but it seems the only way the police will listen to the concerns of the gay community. Polite discussions with the police don’t work.

“OutRage! has agreed to publicise details of the Stratford Rex concert venue and Newham and Stratford Police Stations (which have direct responsibility for policing Sunday’s concert). Details of follow below.

“We will leave it up to people’s individual conscience about what they should do.

“We don’t support violent protests. I hope the police will see sense and avert a bloody confrontation.

“As of Friday afternoon, Sunday’s concert will go ahead with the official sanction of the Home Secretary and the Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

“Jacqui Smith and Sir Paul Stephenson have ignored polite, peaceful lobbying by the gay community. They have treated us with total contempt.

“They condemn gun and knife crime, and deplore the terrible killings of young Londoners, yet they facilitate a singer who promotes murder.”

Mr Tatchell has been tipped off by an officer at New Scotland Yard that the Met Police has decided:

“The MPS would only cancel Bounty Killer’s concert if there is a likelihood of public disorder.”

“This is a tacit encouragement of violent protests,” added Mr Tatchell.

“The police are effectively saying that if someone to threatens to firebomb the concert venue and kill the manager they will cancel the performance. Otherwise, if the protests are peaceful, the police will ignore them.

“It is utterly appalling that the Met Police will only respond to threats of Violence and will ignore peaceful lobbying. This is a complete disgrace.

“Perhaps the gay community should threaten to bomb and burn? Then the police might listen to us.

“New Scotland Yard’s approval of Bounty Killer’s concert, despite him committing the criminal offence of incitement to murder, is absolutely shameful.

“The police have sacked an officer for being a mere member of the BNP, but they refuse to act against a singer who incites murder, which is a serious criminal offence.

“This non-enforcement of the law is not the policy the police adopt when dealing with racists. Racists have been banned from entering the UK and banned from performing, on the grounds that their presence is not conducive to community cohesion and good community relations. Their banning was independent of any threat of public disorder.

“Many of us are fed up with the double standards of the Met Police. This is another example of the Met taking a tougher stand against racism than against homophobia.

“How much more explicit do Bounty Killer’s incitements to murder need to be?,” queried Mr Tatchell.

Watch this video of a Bounty Killer concert. He openly boasts and incites the crowd: “Faggot, I kill every one of them”:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wTIXAToY3f8

“Despite this open, bare-faced incitement of murder, the police refuse to cancel Bounty Killer’s concert and the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has granted him a visa and work permit.

“There is a clear correlation between murder music and homophobic violence, especially in Jamaica, where the release of anti-gay tracks often coincides with a rise in queer-bashing violence,” added Mr Tatchell.

Watch this video of the attempted lynching of a gay man in Jamaica, where the attackers shout the lyrics from murder music songs: “Batty men fi dead (queers must die)”:

http://www.republicoft.com/2007/04/30/a-bashing-in-jamaica/#more-849

Angry? Please do something. Protest to the Jamaican High Commissioner in London, Burchell Whiteman:

hc@jhcuk.com
dhc@jhcuk.com

(email both addresses)

Protest against Bounty Killer’s concert

Stratford Rex concert venue
361-375 Stratford High Street,
London,
E15 4QZ
Phone: 020 8215 6003

Newham Police Station
Email: newham@met.police.uk
Phone: 0300 123 1212

Stratford Police Station
Phone: 0300 123 1212

I really do hope the Metropolitan Police and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, see sense before things start getting really ugly. People are really angry because firstly, we don’t want this crap imported into the UK to poison life here, and secondly because we know that no other community would have to put up with this. There is no way a figure who is notorious for ranting ”Kill the Niggers!” or “Gas the Kikes!” or “Slaughter these Muslim Dogs!” would be allowed a visa to appear in the UK. Everybody knows this double-standard - this hypocrisy - exists.

Sooner or later it’s got to come to a head.

Cherie Blair isn’t getting the high quality political briefing she used to receive while living at No 10:

Former British prime minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie Blair has tripped herself up with her off-the-cuff comments at a school function in a Punjab village and landed in a political controversy.

…

On Tuesday, Blair had told a gathering at a government school in Dhilwan village in Punjab’s Kapurthala district that Jagir Kaur was a “role model” for others.

Now Khaira wants Blair to know that Jagir Kaur is already facing a criminal trial for conspiring to murder her own daughter Harpreet Kaur in April 2000 for marrying a lower caste boy of her own choice.

Oh dear!

Some reaction to the publication of the BNP membership list:

Here is  a recent posting, from the UCU Activists List, by Mike Holmes. Mike Holmes tells me that he has “made libertarian waves on usenet and the web since 1987 and regularly posts under “A Friend of Fernando Poo” and “FoFP”"

Let Mike give the context:

This was posted after a disagreement on a trade union mailing-list. The number of emails generated by the spat had engendered the suggestion that the mailing-list itself should be regarded as a workplace and should therefore be free from “discrimination and harrasment”.  It was further commented that it was a healthy sign if there was “outrage at bigoted remarks not consonant with union principles”.  The latter being almost certainly directed at Mike’s statement that he’d once run a counter-demonstration to the “Sixteen Days” campaign

Mike responds: 

I was pondering much the same idea myself.  It’s an irony that I recently filled in an UCU bullying and harrassment survey.  I confirmed that colleagues don’t threaten me, shout at me, or call me names.  To be honest I couldn’t even imagine anyone doing so.  Little did I think that all I really had to do to experience it in its full glory was to join an UCU mailing-list.

I’m asked to become an UCU activist. I happily do so. I join a list of activists to see what others do and discuss. Sure enough, there’s some sensible discussion. It’s not long however until I discover that a group of Jews, or people who support Jews have stated they are leaving UCU as a result of a policy they regard as discrimination and
harrassment.

Worse, it’s not long before a member is (if you’ll pardon the expression) dancing on their graves and gleefully claiming what amounts to “Go. Good riddance. We’ll replace you with people more in alignment with our thinking, and more of them too!”
This confused me, and I began to ask why we had a policy on something as irrelevant to work as the Palestine/Israel question. It wasn’t long before the name-calling started. Then I discovered that there are folks working towards a law to enable every union (not just our own, that presumably wouldn’t be enough for them) to expel a minority for their
political beliefs. That would be BNP members for anyone who missed it.  I’d always known that the anti-fascist left had become ever more fascist themselves in their zeal, but it was my first up-close viewing of it.  The BNP have odious views but in a free society people are entitled to hold their own views without persecution.  It’s true that they’d most likely persecute minorities themselves, but copying them with the BNP as the persecuted
minority doubles the problem rather than reduces it.  Someone isn’t any less a fascist just because everyone shares their dislike of the folks they’re persecuting.

I’m a Libertarian.  I believe fervently in freedom of speech and of association. For everyone: Left, Right, Indifferent and for the BNP. Liberty isn’t divisible.  If one group can be freely persecuted then so easily can another when someone different is in charge.  The only real protection against persecution of minorities is liberty for all.

I then discovered we had an abortion policy, alienating yet another minority (or possibly a majority?) by forcing one set of people’s views on them by our union holding the opposite view in their name.  I questioned that, to more name calling, though I’d acknowledge some occasional rational discussion on that topic.

Then the list was spammed by an advocate of the Sixteen Days folks. Having fought them before, though not being particularly exercised about them at the moment, I posted to that effect.  Instantly I was called a “bigot” pretty much apropos of nothing except apparently not sharing someone’s politics.  Further explanation of my position regarding our counter-attack on would-be censors amongst the Sixteen Days people brought forth an accusation that I was “promoting child pornography”.There’s probably no single accusation right now in our society more likely to deprive someone of their job or indeed their liberty than that one and we all know it.  Yet someone, despite again us all knowing full well the untruth of it, felt free to hurl it into what is supposed to be a mailing-list of professional people, merely as a kind of throwaway debate tactic. The claim above is that this list is like a workplace.

OK, take a minute yourself and consider how you might feel if someone at work levelled that particular accusation at you. What would you do? How would you react were someone to thus accuse a colleague? Would you consider it harassment? Bullying? Something even worse? I note that nobody felt exercised enough to wonder if that might not be going too far.  Rather the opposite in fact: people wondered if I wasn’t “nit-picking at words” in my reply and began to mutter darkly of using their friends in high places to see if they could shut up those who don’t go along with the prevailing political opinion.  Many here say they don’t believe in censorship *BUT* (those who believe in censorship always have a “but”) apparently they really absolutely have to draw the line at people who disagree with them.

I came here to see what activists do and say.  I concede that I received the education I sought.  I’m sure I’ve only experienced a tiny part of that harrassment felt by the Jews and supporters who felt forced out of UCU, but I’m no longer at all confused about their reasons.  I have no doubt at all they were quite simply bullied out.  Just another minority to get rid of like the BNP supporters, no doubt by people who congratulate themselves regularly on their unwavering support of “minorities”.

I have scant doubt that if some seriously mean to do the same to libertarians (another minority, a small one, and possibly one limited to me) then they’ll drum up some way at NEC or whatever to do it.  It must be truly awful and terrible to contemplate that someone, somewhere, disagrees with one and yet remains on the list, or perhaps even in UCU.

Meanwhile I’ll fill in the form again and let UCU know that if they want to see bullying, they need to look rather closer to home. I’ve met some good people on this list (or perhaps more accurately off it) but there are certain of you, well, in the last couple of days I’ve discovered that I feel soiled even exchanging email with you. The kind of disgust that makes me want to wash my hands afterwards. That such people have reached the top of UCU makes me seriously wonder about its future and its worth.

Those are certainly not sentiments I ever had before entering this list. I thought we were in a union to help and support people in their problems at work.  Some seem instead to have turned it into a vehicle for their sundry political interests and vendettas by passing up motions until they’re effectively policy. Once they’re policy they’re apparently used to browbeat those who demur.

Don’t agree with them on abortion/Palestine/censorship? I think you’ll find comrade that the Party has ruled and you should now think in the way of the majority.  Though by “majority” here we mean a few activists who care enough to get their sundry agendas and pogroms passed up the line enough to have them made policy. And this irrespective of a tenous if that connection to the interests of the dues-paying members.

I had for the past 25 years naively believed I was a member of a trade union which welcomed all minorities and all political persuasions and gave them all respect. Instead I found a vipers nest of, yes, bigotry and childish name-calling. No, wait, not childish, but very serious name-calling and most likely libelous besides.

Thanks for the education folks. I’ll teach myself how to deal with the disillusionment.

Andy Newman writes:

There is no doubt that last night’s election result in the Mile End ward in Tower Hamlets was a very disappointing one, and stands in stark contrast to the brilliant win in the Shadwell ward just over a year ago.

Respect campaigners were expecting to do better, and to give Labour a run for their money - canvass returns and general impressions of the campaign were giving grounds for confidence. So there needs to be some calm reflection and analysis on why the vote was not higher.

There is no doubt that the accrimonious split with the SWP has left both sides weaker. but we should also be clear that George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob and Respect have built up some considerable political capital; particularly strengthened by the absolutely correct alignment with Ken Livingstone during the mayoral election. The challenge now is to see how that political capital can be built upon.

Mile End East by-election result:

Labour 1208
Conservatives 630
Respect 604
Liberal Democrats 110

Hurrah!

This is an alert from the Sanctuary for Jila, Emad & Aref campaign  

Jila  Kalkhoran her sons Emad and Aref Pirouzeh are nationals of Iran and residents of Middlesbrough; they are currently detained in Yarl’s Wood IRC and due to be forcibly removed from the UK on Friday 21st November on BMI Flight BD931 from London Heathrow @ 17:15 to Tehran Imam Khomeini International, Iran.

Jila, Emad & Pizrouzeh were ’snatched’ from their Middlesbrough home Wednesday morning.

Jila and her family became targets of violence and intimidation in Iran following her husband’s involvement in political activity proscribed by the Iranian government.  Jila’s husband Ali Pirouzeh was a journalist for a publication, which was critical of the Iranian regime’s record on women’s rights, poverty and religious rights.

Jila & the children came to the UK in October 2007 for a visit, fully intending to return to Iran. News from her partner in early 2008 said that the situation was getting worse and he advised her not to return to Iran. Jila made an asylum claim in March 2008. Jila’s husband was forced to flee Iran in June 2008 following a number of violent incidents against him and others. He fully intended to try and get to the UK to join is wife and children but only got as far as Holland, where he made an asylum claim which is still under consideration.

After claiming Asylum in the UK, Jila and her children came to live in Middlesbrough, where they have settled down to become much loved members of the community and a local evangelical Jubilee Church Teesside.  Jila’s Christian faith is her second well-founded fear of persecution. Jila and the boys have become Christians in the UK and regularly attend, and are actively involved in, the life of Jubilee Church Teesside.

In 2007 Amnesty International announced that it was concerned by the “rising tide of harassment of journalists and women’s rights activists in Iran by security officials.”  Such harassment included travel restrictions both inside and outside Iran, and arbitrary and indefinite detention in Iran’s prisons.  Journalists critical of the government have been accused by the Iranian authorities of “disturbing public opinion”, “propaganda against the system” and “publication of lies.”  Reporters Without Borders comments that “many journalists were also held in secret, without even basic rights” and media outlets sometimes face physical attack by government organisations and Koranic schools.

On 8.10.08 The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, Rt Hon David Miliband, MP, condemned a draft bill currently making its way through the Iranian Parliament, which would codify the death penalty for apostasy. David Miliband commented that he “deplored the way in which the Iranian Parliament is· now discussing a draft penal code that would set out a mandatory death sentence for the crime, quote unquote, of apostasy.” He went on to say that “If adopted, [the legislation] would violate the right to freedom of religion, which is also an important basis of any civilised society.”

The draft bill being debated in Iran was initially approved at a first stage vote by the Iranian parliament on Tuesday 9 September, with 196 votes for, seven against, and two abstentions. The bill, named the Islamic Penal Code, is currently due to be sent back to the Legislative Commission for amendments before being brought before the Iranian parliament for a final vote. http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=press&id=789

All legal avenues have been exhausted. They are a charming family whose politeness and warmth has touched everyone whom they met.  Emad and Aref have taken part in a range of community youth activities, to which they contributed talent, enthusiasm and maturity beyond their years.  It would be tragic and an injustice if this family were to be forcibly removed to The Islamic Republic of Iran, a country from which they fled in fear of their lives.

Jila, Emad and Aref were detained for removal earlier this year due to a mistake in the asylum process, which was only; rectified at the last moment and they were released.  Now the family have been detained a second time for removal again on 21st November 2008, despite the fact that fresh evidence received from Iran concerning her husband’s case is currently being translated.

Local Middlesbrough residents are campaigning to keep the family in the UK.

What you can do to Help:

1) Please send urgent faxes to Nigel Turner, Chief Executive Officer BMI Airways, asking that BMI should not facilitate Home Office enforcement policies, using the attached ‘model letter’ (JilaEmadArefBMI.doc) you can copy/amend/write your own version, if you do so, please remember to include the following details:  Jila, Emad & Aref due to be forcibly removed from the UK on Friday 21st November on BMI Flight BD931 from London Heathrow @ 17:15 to Tehran Imam Khomeini International, Iran.

Fax: Fax:: 01332 854989  from outside the UK: + 44 1332 854989

Leave a complaint/concern

BMI Customer Relations: At BMI we are committed to our customers and value your feedback. You can leave a complaint/concern @

http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/planning-and-information/customer-service/customer-relations.aspx

2) Ring BMI Head Office and ask to speak to the CEO, Nigel Turner (Tel: 01332 854000).  You probably won’t be able to speak to him personally, but you should be able to leave a message, at least to say that you have sent a fax.

3)  Please send urgent faxes/emails immediately to Rt. Hon.Jacqui Smith, Secretary for State, asking that Jila, Emad & Aref, be granted protection in the UK. Please use the attached ‘model letter’ (JilaEmadAref SJ.doc) which you can copy/amend/write your own version, if you do so, please remember to include their HO ref: K1279501.

Fax: 020 8760 3132(00 44 20 8760 3132 if you are faxing from outside UK)

Email: Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Please let the campaign know of faxes/emails sent:

‘Sanctuary for Jila, Emad & Aref’

24 Oxford Road

Middlesbrough

TS5 5DZ

Tel. 079 1442 2994 / or 079 3238 4248

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For the first time, the Palestinian Authority has taken out advertisements in Israel’s Hebrew language press to promote the Saudi peace plan. The 2002 Saudi plan (in brief) offers diplomatic recognition of Israel in exchange for the lands captured in 1967, East Jerusalem and a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee question. I don’t want to get into the details of the plan here, which broadly accords with what a majority of Israelis and Palestinians support, depending of course on your definition of a “just solution” for the refugees and the boundaries of East Jerusalem.

By going over the head of Israel’s fractious politicians, the PA has done something imaginative and productive, which hopefully will at least trigger debate. As the BBC reports:

The PA advertisement appears in the three main Hebrew dailies and is headed by the Palestinian and Israeli flags.

The text reads: “Fifty-seven Arab and Muslim countries will establish diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for a full peace accord and the end of the occupation.”

The advert includes the full text of the seven-point initiative and is framed by the flags of 50 Arab and Muslim countries.

Mabruk!

This is a guest post by habibi

Azad Ali is the president of the Civil Service Islamic Society (CSIS). This is how the CSIS presents itself on its web site:

The Civil Service Islamic Society (CSIS) was launched in February 2005 and is a non-political, voluntary society, representative of mainstream Islamic opinion in central government. The Society works within the Civil Service framework of honesty, impartiality and integrity. It aims to build on common shared inter-faith values for the benefit of the Civil Service. The mission of the CSIS is to raise awareness of Islam, influence areas of interests and empower its Muslim staff by acting as a representative body of mainstream Islamic affairs. The patron and ambassador of the Civil Service Islamic Society is Sir Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service.

Azad Ali blogs here under the umbrella of the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE).  The IFE is linked to Jamaat i Islami and the East London Mosque.

Take a look at Ali’s latest post, titled “Defeating extremism by promoting balance”.  It is an embittered call to Muslims to stand up for what he sees as a correct understanding of jihad: it is the struggle against “oppression” in religiously appropriate circumstances as well as inner purification.  In fact, he opens the post with some words from Huthaifa Azzam, son of Abdullah Azzam, a prominent “Afghan Arab” in the 1980s jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a mentor of Osama bin Laden, and a fanatical Jew hater.  Here’s a short video telling part of Azzam père’s story.

While discussing the theological contribution of Azzam fils, Ali cites this quote:

“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.”

For Azad Ali, apparently these are words of wisdom, for jihad must be reclaimed not from al Qaeda alone, who have bombed Amman, Huthaifa Azzam’s home, but Muslim peaceniks too:

There are a few Muslims who promote the understanding of the term Jihad in its comprehensive glory, one that reflects history as well as the practice of Muslims going back to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.

There are multiple reasons for this, but primarily, in my opinion, it is to do with the restrictions (whether perceived or actual) placed on Muslims by themselves. Self-censorship has taken many Muslims to the point where you can almost feel the contempt they have for Jihad. We have had campaign after campaign that tells people Islam is peace, scholars, activists and droves of Muslims rush to let everyone know that Islam is peace.

Of course this action by the vast majority is noble and I am not knocking that – but I am concerned why they could not say Islam is about Justice – peace is related to Justice. What peace does a man have when he is oppressed? What peace does the soul have when it has transgressed Allah’s boundaries? Is it not said that Muslims are in the category of Nafs (soul) al-Lawamma (questioning/blame) and we aspire to be in the category of Nafs al-Mutma’innah (soul at peace)?By this approach we have caused disillusionment and in some instances radical and extreme reactions from within.

You may take Shaykh Anwar Awlaki as an example. Reading his blogs, one cannot help but feel his frustration at the constant denial of legitimate Islamic principles. Worse is the complete incompetence of some Muslims to distinguish between Jihad and acts of murder.

Though the wording is cautious, surely Azad Ali is citing Azzam fils as an example to follow precisely because he supports the murder – yes, it would be murder - of British soldiers in Iraq.

He does not say what British Muslims should do if jihad is an obligation.  Perhaps a civil servant could ask him.

This is very dangerous talk.   Supporting jihad in Iraq, or other “occupied” lands for that matter, is bad enough.  Worse, at home in Britain, is the conclusion the angriest young men who hear the likes of it may draw.  If the British army in Iraq is certainly a legitimate target, the state is its master, and voters and taxpayers choose the government and fund the army, why not mount attacks in the UK?  This is indeed a message that recurs in “martyrdom videos” of arrested British jihadis.

Note too Azad Ali’s citation of Anwar al Awlaki, an American Yemeni Islamist, in the quotes above.  Ali is fond of al Awlaki, calling him ”one of my favourite speakers and scholars” and saying “I really do love him for the sake of Allah, he has an uncanny way of explaining things to people which is endearing”.  In this post Ali is referring specifically to this hateful screed,  where al Awlaki claims America is at war with Islam “and not just against the so called extremists”; insists that Muslims have a duty ”to strive through Jihad to establish the Islamic Khilafah [caliphate]; and compares American Muslims who particpated in the presidential election to abused dogs that remain loyal to their “owners” only because they are given a bone once in a while.

In a related post on the American election, al Awlaki calls American Muslims who voted in the presidential election “house negros” and tells them “you will always be seen as the enemy and you will never be accepted unless you do one thing: give up your religion”.

Mr al Awlaki is, well, quite unbalanced.  So is anyone who admires him, such as Azad Ali, for example.

Turning back to Britain, Azad Ali thinks that the government’s domestic anti-extremism measures are bound to fail, and he says so, bluntly:

The millions pumped in by the government to ‘de-radicalise’ Muslims will be a complete waste and will not really achieve anything other than one or two headlines here and there. The real victory will come when we start promoting ‘balance’ in this matter (and in our religion) and not either of the two extremes.

“Balance”, as far as Azad Ali is concerned, appears to mean buying into Azzam’s conception of jihad in order to “defeat extremism”. What else, in practice, does Ali expect the government to do? To support jihadi politics overseas? To allow those who promote jihad into the UK?  To partner with organisations in the UK which are linked to jihadi parties, such as Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood?

If CSIS is to make a worthwhile contribution to anti-extremism campaigns, it needs a new president.

The trouble is, Azad Ali has made links with officialdom over many years, which puts him in a strong position when he pushes this dangerous and foolish agenda. See this description of his extensive dealings with various governmental bodies:

Azad Ali is married with 3 children and lives in East London; he has been a community activist for over 20 years. He is a presenter on Muslim Community Radio’s flagship show Easy Talk. Aziz is the former chair of the Muslim Safety Forum and currently leads on the Counter Terrorism work-team for the Forum, working with the Home Office, ACPO and Security Services. Azad is currently the President of the Civil Service Islamic Society and a Board Member of the London CrimeStoppers. He is also a Trustee of the East London Mosque & London Muslim Centre. He chairs the Muslim Council of Britain’s Membership Committee and is a member of its Central Working Committee. He is also the Vice-Chair of Canon Barnet School Board of Governors and Chair of the Saturday Islamic School Board of Governors. He sits on the Strategic Stop & Search Committee and Police Use of Firearms Group with the Met. Azad is also a member of the IPCC’s Community Advisory Group and the Home Office’s Trust and Confidence Community Panel.

As far as CSIS itself goes, many of its activities appear wholly anodyne to me. However, this year part of the proceeds of its annual iftar dinner were passed to Interpal (source here), a charity that is banned in a number of jurisdictions, although not in the United Kingdom. The dinner was attended by Sadiq Khan, MP, and Peter Lewis, head of the Crown Prosecution Service.

What a sad and mad state of affairs. Poor Britain. It needs and deserves much better when it comes to fighting and beating extremism.