Time to complain about Express slanders

Osama Saeed has reprinted an article from yesterday’s Sunday Express (via PhobeWatch) which trots out a number of tired canards regarding the Muslim community’s response to terrorism, claiming that Labour are getting tired of our community (read: they cannot buy off with hate laws our opposition to their bombing of Muslim countries) because our so-called community leaders have failed to show leadership to our community. The Express quoted an anonymous “Home Office source” as follows:

“This idea of community leadership is a complete nonsense. The Muslim Council of Britain purports to represent the Muslim community but what have they actually done to show leadership since 9/11? on all the major issues – on the 7/7 terror attacks, on the cartoon row they have hid behind the Home Office.

“It is now taken as read by the Government that these self-appointed groups really don’t have any power or influence over the Muslim populations. They got what they wanted from the Government but there was no real delivery in return. Now it is clear that they can’t deliver.”

The Express also printed an editorial, which I have reproduced from Osama’s blog:

Memo to the leaders of the Muslim community: it is time to stand up and take your place in the fight against terrorism now. For years we have been told that Islam is a religion of peace, that the Muslim community is as appalled as anyone else at the atrocities committed by Islamic terrorists and that it is only a small number of extremists who take to the streets carrying placards saying, “Behead all those who insult Islam”. Now the Muslim population of this country must make it clear that this is true. For, as we report today, the Government has lost faith in the ability of moderate Muslim leaders to lead the fight against Islamic extremists and, it is fair to say, it has a point.

Take the events of yesterday. Thousands of Muslims gathered in London to protest at the recent cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed – and yet not one of these cartoons has been published in a mainstream newspaper anywhere in the country. Where were these protesters when Ken Bigley was murdered and the results broadcast on the net? Where were they when disaffected youths set off suicide bombs on London’s transport system, killing and maiming untold others?

For far too long organisations such as the Muslim Council Of Britain and the Muslim Association Of Britain have remained silent in the face of atrocities carried out in the name of Islam. If they do not wish their religion to become synonymous in the public’s mind with barbarity, they must speak out now.

Three specific issues stand out from this editorial and the accusations made in the first article:

(1) It has always been well-known that Muslims have no ability to police their community. All of our organisations are voluntary, and none of them have official status or any ability to enforce their decisions on the Muslim community. This has always been the case. In the case of the MCB, its status has in fact increased in the past year or so since the bombings. When they were founded, they were dismissed in Q-News as a group of the same people whose faces turn up time after time in the Daily Jang.

In particular, the MCB cannot dictate what goes on in mosques, because they are run by quite separate organisations - usually one organisation per mosque. It cannot appoint or dismiss imams. And even when extremists are prohibited from teaching in mosques, they are able to hire community centres (as did a number of the extremists around Abu Qatada), preach in the street (as al-Muhajiroun did for many years) or take over mosques by force (as with Abu Hamza).

(2) There is a specific accusation that Muslim organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain “have remained silent in the face of atrocities carried out in the name of Islam”. This is a demonstrable untruth: MAB issued this press release condemning the bombings within hours of them happening. As for the MCB, they issued this joint statement with Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, dated 7th July 2005. So it is not true that they remained silent. Islamophobia Watch posted details of a number of condemnations of the bombings from a number of Muslim organisations; the reader might look at their weekly archive; the archive consists of several pages, and the links can be found from the fourth page. The appalling murder of Ken Bigley is also mentioned as an example of the community’s silence; however, the MAB was not in fact silent then and has been actively involved in attempting to secure the release of another hostage, Norman Kember.

This incident should be reported to the Press Complaints Commission as it contains demonstrable falsehoods and consists of an attempt to stoke hostility to Muslims. Bear in mind that this newspaper has a long history of printing stories of a prejudiced nature against minorities; one might remember the repeated attacks on immigrants (particularly east European Gypsies) they printed in 2004. The paper presently concerns itself with every new suspicion about the death of the long-forgotten Lady Diana. However impaired the paper’s credibility, this is still a front-page attack on our community in a national newspaper and complaints need to be registered with the PCC.

Details of how to make a complaint can be found here at the PCC website. The PCC recommend that a letter be sent to the editor, and that the PCC should be notified if he does not reply within a week. Therefore, readers are advised to contact the paper’s editor at expressletters@express.co.uk. They should point out the facts mentioned above: that the organisations mentioned have, and always have had, no ability to control extremist elements in the community because they have no policing powers and no control over mosques, in terms of permitted activities, hiring and firing, or anything else; and that the two organisations mentioned did condemn the 7th July terrorist incidents on the day they took place.

The Sunday Express can also be contacted by fax at 0871 434 7062. However, this is a premium rate 0871 number - making the Express and Star the only papers in the UK which scam people in this way when they want to contact them! If anyone can find their proper 020 number, that would be very useful as nobody wants to pay through the nose to complain to a paper when some of that money might reach the newspaper! So, an email campaign might be a better idea. If no apology is forthcoming in next Sunday’s issue, the PCC is the next step.

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