Harry's Place

This is terrific news. My Rioja tonight will taste all the sweeter for having heard it.

Ha, fucking ha.

Coincidentally, I have a meeting with my M.P. after the information-packed and long letters I’ve been writing him recently. The most recent was about Daud Abdullah.

Let’s see what happens….before then let’s not get too carried away.

Sympathy? I should bloody well hope not.

I’m ignorant on most of this sort of stuff, but what about sovereign immunity?

I pray it goes ahead & this Islamist scumbag & his filthy cronies are ruined.

I’m no fan of Ms Blears, but alone among the government, she seems to have
some ideas about the threat to our society. And also how multiculturalism has given it the green light.

Fingers crossed chaps.

Any chance of Keith Vaz being involved ?

Martin

Unseen, hence not suing her as an individual but in respect of her office.

Dr Kemal Helbawy, the man who appeared on the BBC Arabic Service, explaining his view that two year old children in Israel were “future soldiers”.

I heared about that………..quite ironic as I sometimes hear in Israel (quite racistly) that Palistinians will eventually become terrorists and so It’s OK to kill them. I never thought someone would use that idiotic logic to actually justify terrorism.

All the more reason for the immediate introduction of Shari’a Law. Then good Muslims could not be persecuted like this for doing their religious duty.

Excellent news.

btw here is a link to a recent speech by Dr Bari at the Joining-up-the-Dots Conference:

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari
Secretary General, Muslim Council of Britain
Friends House, Euston, 31 March 2009

http://www.mcb.org.uk/article_detail.php?article=announcement-787

If it does go to trial though he can count on plenty of support from what laughably counts today as the UK’s intelligentsia:

Peter Wilby, New Statesman -

“Try this sentence. “Mrs Thatcher’s poll tax must be fought by all ways and means.”

I cannot be certain that any Labour shadow minister or MP made this statement in the late 1980s, but it is likely some of them said or wrote something similar. But when Daud Abdullah, deputy secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, signs a declaration stating that the entry of “foreign warships” into Gazan waters should be “fought by all means and ways”, all hell breaks lose. Never mind that the declaration didn’t mention the Royal Navy and that such an operation is purely hypothetical.

If you’re a Muslim, you have to mind your language.”

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/04/british-bald-wine-war-grey

“I cannot be certain that any Labour shadow minister or MP made this statement in the late 1980s”

Tony Benn did, from the safety of Parliament where this cowardly weasel couldn’t be touched for incitement to break the law of the land.

Clive:
“If you’re a Muslim, you have to mind your language.”

I shouldn’t worry Clive – the BBC’s doing a fine job minding their language for some of them.

See how the child-murdering Palestinian terrorists get their anxieties justified by our State broadcaster here.

http://theyrejokingarentthey.blogspot.com/2009/04/some-dead-kid-another-dead-kid-whatever.html

Muslims could do with a few more community leaders prepared to condemn this kind of savagery outright.
No ifs. No buts. No maybes.
How many Left-liberals hacked German children to death during World War Two?

None, I’d guess.

Wilby is such a twat.

If the ‘all ways and all means’ statement was made by a wonky-toothed journo, then nobody would think it involved a threat of terrorism.

But made by a conference of terrorists and terrorist supporters, it means something very different.

What is he suing for?

Is there an external link to this news?

I am absolutely delighted if true and I have brought forward my hot roast rib beef and mustard to enhance my enjoyment as I contemplate this lawsuit.

“How dare that woman tell me off! She should be in a burkha and at home with the children! I’m not going to be told what to do by a woman who is really just a Zionist front!”

Peter Wilby was one of the panellists at a Just Journalism (http://www.justjournalism.com/) discussion, sponsored by the Jewish Chronicle, about ‘Is the media obsessed with Israel?’. The audience was a seething mass of upset Jewry, and even Jon Snow seemed vaguely to understand why, but weaselly Wilby, he of the NS swastika cartoon I believe, couldn’t see any problem.

Parity -

If GG can sue, why can’t he? Is it because he is a Muslimg?
You wouldn’t be a Muslim-hater, would you now?

(For the benefit of the usual idiots: that was irony. End of disclaimer.)

I made a badly constructed question. I KNOW he’s suing for libel (because Lucy Lips says so). My question is “On what basis does he believe he was libelled”?

Also, since Blears referred to Lucy Lips post at HP I would assume it might feature in the court case. In that respect we may be joyful but is anyone at HP required in the dock to give evidence?

Do I guess that Blears wouldn’t actually go to court but a Govt. solicitor would represent The Secretary of State?

I think the case will be a sensation. I wonder if the Govt. can afford any good lawyers?

Obviously the phrase ‘bite not the hand that feeds you’ does not translate terribly well into arabic.
I hope Ms Blears’ lawyers wipe the floor with him.

His defence – such at it is – is that as Britain has not yet sent the Royal Navy to the area, the suggestion that he was supporting terrorism is based on “totally hypothetical scenarios”.

He thinks attempting to control the foreign policy of Britain by threatening acts of war and terrorism isn’t treason? BOGGLE!

The problem for the MCB is that they don’t understand the reality of court cases. If you’re a primary school, or a minor local government functionary, and you receive a solicitor’s letter threatening action, it’s a big deal. You have to immediately involve your council’s legal services team, it looks bad for you even if the threat is hollow and the prospective case farcical, it’s generally something to be avoided. My father, as a CAB advisor, used to tell people — accurately — that solicitors’ letters have no more force than a letter from any other person, but they are accurate weapons when aimed at risk-averse local authority aparatchicks.

And those, more often than not, are the targets of the offended amor propre of self-appointed community leaders.

But in the big boys’ world, of newspapers and large enterprises and cabinet ministers, nutters threatening to sue you are a daily event. You retain legal council as a matter of course, whose Nazgul-like task is to eradicate the threat and salt the earth. Libel, wrongful dismissal, patent infringement: these are matters to be defended.

No rational person is going to sue a sitting cabinet minister for libel. The case will be defended by good lawyers, the bona fides of the defendant go without saying while those of the plaintiff are usually up for discussion, proving matters to civil standards of justification is trivial if you have the resources of a major government available — remember, if she’s sued corporately, she can use those resources to defend herself — and most of the jury will be sat there (if it gets to a jury trial) wondering why their time is being wasted by a whinging ingrate.

If Blears has any sense she will apply for an expedited trial, and if the case is withdrawn prior to trial pursue the MCB to the ends of the earth for costs. Getting the MCB struck out as a vexatious litigant would be fun, were it not for the fact that watching them immolate themselves in the witness box will be more fun. Do we have the concept of barratry in UK law? I know in US law threatening to sue without actually doing so can itself by an offence.

“He thinks” – category mistake, Josh?

xyzzy -

well put, but my version of 8:48 is more concise :-)

I have never come across “barratry” in English law. I have threatened people who owed me money with SENDING solicitors letters (I don’t recall ever arranging to have one sent), and that has always done the trick. Some of them have been quite rich, and none has sent me a solicitor’s letter claiming barratry. This may or may not prove it one way or another (I know that you can’t prove the non-existence of pink elephants by claiming you have never seen one, of course).

Wa-haha, Nursey!

The very fact he joined in a conference with people who have declared Jihad on the UK is surely a traitorous action.

Well this is fantastic news… Do you think it WILL be news – for the newspapers, I mean?

I think that one of his major problems is going to be the nature of the people who organised, attended, and co-signed that letter.

All that is going to come out in court.

All of it is going to be discussed, in painful detail, by the press – utterly freed from the fear of being sued for publishing a libel.

When he loses, it will be almost impossible to libel him, or any of those who stand close to him, ever again.

Spot on xyzzy.

It’ll be David Irving rides again

If the MCB have any sense left at all, Adbullah will be persuaded to resign from the Council “while he pursues his case”. That’s my reading of it.

8. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard the sending of foreign warships into Muslim waters [. . .]

In the event that Daud Abdullah should get stuck for an argument in court, he could always try this: There is no such nation as the so-called “Islamic Nation” and there are no such waters as the so-called “Muslim waters”. Therefore Clause 8 of the Istanbul Declaration describes a state of affairs that has no existence in the material world. Therefore no crime has been committed.

This is hilarious – in a strange way I’m glad that in the possible dying days of a Labour adminstration that I helped (in a very small way) to bring about that the pompous litigious prick is not an MP going to jail.

Another thing, in the common internet acronym – IANAL – have people tried to sue a minister in their capacity as minister before?

There is clearly a split within the management committee of the MCB. If they were backing Abdullah, Carter-Fuck would be representing him.

Either CF do not believe there is a case or the rest of the MCB do not want even the small risk this could go before a judge.

So, what will happen next?

My guess is that Abdullah is thick enough to think he has been libelled. The rest realise he has not been. Simultaneously torpedoing his chances of succeeding Bari as Secretary-General and scapegoating him as a rogue element, the MCB will distance themselves from this libel action and describe it as unproductive.

That will enable them to try and re-establish relations with the government. Bari might well also have to go. Bungle, who was against the MCB wish to ban Geert Wilders, will make his move as the new moderate in the midst.

Wilby is indeed a twat. What a weasel-worded deceptive muppet. He’s bending over so far it’s a wonder his spine isn’t in pieces.

I cannot believe Abdullah is doing this. What a fucking muppet. He’s going to get completely shafted by the government. I mean, is he actually a cretin? Fantastic stuff.

He and his cockweasel turkey mates are in for one massive episode of Christmas stuffing, brought on by themselves.

Bring. It. On.

For fun, read the Bari’s speech in Oxford. http://www.mcb.org.uk/article_detail.php?article=announcement-786

Muslims are now seen by some politicians in the two main parties as individuals, not as a community. Is this going to be the case with other faith and ethnic communities?

It appears he thinks that seeing people as individuals is a bad thing. Remind me, isn’t essentialism normally seen as a sin on the left?

Spectator link totally broken.

Daud Abdullah and the Muslim Council of Britain are about to be utterly destroyed. After this business is over, only the nutters of Socialist Action and the Socialist Workers’ Party will have anything to do with them.

No.

You forgit CI(F).

xyzzy

That is an astonishing line from his speech. He says it as if it is self-evident that to treat people as individuals would be problematic. I’m lost for words.

He also says in the speech that the Istanbul Declaration has been mistranslated. This is the first time that this predictable defence has been used in this case.

“In the event that Daud Abdullah should get stuck for an argument in court, he could always try this: There is no such nation as the so-called “Islamic Nation” and there are no such waters as the so-called “Muslim waters”. ”

He could, but it would hardly make him popular with his mates.

What is he exactly suing the Secretary of State for?

Still laughing.

Spectator link http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3512746/blears-takes-on-the-mcb.thtml

Well to answer my own question, he is suing her for defamation! You couldn’t make it up could you?

dr Abdullah is providing a text book example of the ability of some of our leading Muslims, to hold two conflicting publicly stated opinions at the same time. One for overseas consumption and one for the UK. (Note: this ability to believe one thing when abroad and another at home is not confined to Abdullah, Tony Blair was a noted practitioner and Gordon Brown is shaping up to go the same way).

Anyway here is the BBC account:

“A leading member of the Muslim Council of Britain is suing cabinet minister Hazel Blears for defamation, following a row over the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

Dr Daud Abdullah, who is the MCB deputy secretary-general, is seeking damages.

Ms Blears said a document which Dr Abdullah signed on hostilities in Gaza had advocated attacks on UK military personnel and on Jews around the world.

Ms Blears made the claim in a letter to the Guardian last week, but Dr Abdullah has vehemently denied it.

The document is known as the Istanbul Declaration and was signed by 90 Muslim leaders in response to the three-week Israeli offensive in Gaza, in December and January.

The minister said the declaration supported violence against foreign troops, including British naval forces and advocated “attacks on Jewish communities all around the world”. Ms Blears, who is Communities Secretary, said Dr Abdullah needed to make his own position clear.

Dr Abdullah has in turn accused Ms Blears of “crude bullying”. Responding to Ms Blears with his own letter to the Guardian, Dr Abdullah said: “I do not advocate attacks on any religious community, including Jewish communities, and I do not advocate attacks on British military forces.”

“What I do advocate is the right of all British citizens to agree or disagree with government policy and to use all lawful means to democratically make their voices heard.

“A government which tries to suppress discussion of such views by the kind of crude bullying to which Hazel Blears unfortunately stoops will have little moral support, not only in the Muslim community, but in wider society,” he added.

Ms Blears said that (Adullah’s co signing of a public statement by some leading Muslims recently insisting they did not “condone, encourage or support” killing any human beings or attacks on British soldiers) was a “helpful first step” but that “greater clarity” of Dr Abdullah’s views was needed. She said she stood by what she believed about the declaration.

“Public statements that assert that attacks of this kind are not only acceptable but an ‘obligation’ cannot go unchallenged,” she said.

Update in Today’s Guardian:

a letter in the Guardian last week, signed by figures including Ken Livingstone and Tony Benn, urged the government to “end its attack on Dr Abdullah and reinstate its relations with the MCB”.

Abdullah’s lawyers have told Blears that unless she issues a retraction and apology by 15 April they will issue proceedings for libel.

Libel?

Sometimes I feel sad and bereft of hope… is there any chance this could succeed?

Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167198/Deputy-leader-Muslim-group-sue-Government-row-extremism.html

Mrs Blears’s office was last night standing firm, making the prospect of a hugely damaging court case a strong possibility.

It also leaves relations between the Government and the MCB –the umbrella for hundreds of disparate groups and once considered the Muslim organisation closest to Labour – in tatters.

The Sun:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2360555.ece

A CABINET minister is being sued for libel by a leading Muslim after calling him an extremist.

It is the latest twist in a row which prompted the Government to break links with the council.

Tim Marshall, Sky News:
http://blogs.news.sky.com/foreignmatters/Post:39176db6-02a7-47ac-bef6-2c467b6cfccb

Mr Abdullah, whose quango receives tax payers money, signed the ‘Istanbul Declaration’ a Hamas sponsored
document which includes the following;

[Interesting that Marshall describes the MCB as a quango - quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation]

Bearsden Herald:

http://www.bearsdenherald.co.uk/latest-national-news/Blears-facing-Muslim-legal-move.5141753.jp

A bitter dispute between the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the Government has escalated when the group’s deputy secretary-general launched legal action against Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.

Has nobody else read “Choosing Our Friends Wisely” by Shiraz Maher and Martyn Frampton, published by Policy Exchange, which clearly highlights how, in Contest (which preceded Contest 2) government and Local Government collaborated (and gave a lot of taxpayers money to) with several highly suspect Muslim groups, some of them represented by people doing just what is apparent here, ie. saying one thing in this country and another abroad. As a result, they were given legitimacy by the Government.

It doesn’t look as though Hazel Blears is going to back down -and good on her for that. If she’d wanted to take a more political route she could have made do with that letter signed by Abdullah and others. It looks, however, as though she really does understand what all this is really about. Power to her elbow I say.

“A government which tries to suppress discussion of such views by the kind of crude bullying to which Hazel Blears unfortunately stoops will have little moral support, not only in the Muslim community, but in wider society,” he added.

Talk about psychological mirroring! We had 4 weeks of ‘discussion’ on the streets of the UK at great expense to private property and the taxpayer.

Abdullah’s lawyers have told Blears that unless she issues a retraction and apology by 15 April they will issue proceedings for libel.

Setting a deadline is even more a case of the MCB setting themselves up for a fall. generic threat could be allowed to lapse quietly; as things stand, journalists will be putting the 15th in their diaries. As we know that Blears is hardly going to apologise, the MCB will be left between the choice of a humiliating climb-down or a devastating defeat. In the typical libel action, the defendant has no reason to want the case to proceed: if the plaintiff abandons the case, the only issue is costs. In this case, Blears has every reason to refuse to negotiate, refuse to settle, and drive the thing through to a judgement. That smoking hole in the ground? That’s the MCB’s future, that is. With a dated deadline, there is absolutely no way they survive this.

One could say that at last Hazel Blears has seen the light, but Oh dear, what a long time it has taken! She does, however, deserve at least one or two stars for having the courage of her convictions and presumably facing down those who urged “don’t upset the apple cart”.

Dedicated to Hazel Blears?!:

‘Chicago’ – We both reached for the gun’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBM82Ju2kJU&feature=related

So, if this Islamic Nation does not exist and therefore has no substance in sovereignty, then the weighty pronouncement in section 8, in fact, is nothing more than a wank-fest of self delight and mutual jerking off?

I am no lawyer (obviously) but am I right in this careful interpretation of these noisy kiddie’s jolly day out?

“the weighty pronouncement in section 8, in fact, is nothing more than a wank-fest of self delight and mutual jerking off?”

I would say that this is exactly what it is, even if they DO believe in the existence of this mythical “nation” (which clearly they do, when they are overseas, however vociferously they deny this in the UK, as was pointed out above.

“a letter in the Guardian last week, signed by figures including Ken Livingstone and Tony Benn, urged the government to “end its attack on Dr Abdullah and reinstate its relations with the MCB”.”

Yes, but figures of what? I’d say figures of stupidity, hypocrisy and racism.

As to it being a “mistranslation”: damn, I was just going to suggest that.

Mehere -
If you look around you will find a lot of conotation’s to the concept of ‘Islamic Nation’, Bin Laden is using it a lot.
It’s one of the basic concept in the radical sunny islamist discourse.
It’s often used with slogans like keep ‘western forces and values’ out of the Islamic Nation.
Now the concept ‘Islamic Waters’ is new one, but a natural extension.
The problem is that the Istanbul Declaration shares concepts with Bin Laden, because it blurs the distinction between theorist and radical islam, but of course the authors know that, they use ambiguity deliberately.

Isnt the one-man Bajwa the same lawyer who had JCom jewish radio station shut down after a Galloway libel victory? And also involved in suing the Policy Exchange hate tank?

This case could be fun.

Oh dear. I can’t decide whether this is a reaction to narcissistic injury or attention seeking. We certainly have all the hall marks – exaggerated sense of entitlement, grandiose overinflated sense of worth, etc.

Does anyone else think it strange that such a creature (whose lot would, presumably, dispense with all our laws it got the power it thinks it deserves) is so quick to turn to them?

How does this tie in with Abdullah’s more peaceable and affable (and obviously al-takeyya) presentation when he recanted of his Jew- and other hatred?

I still fail to see how Blears libelled him (although I know that this cannot be explained in detail here). It seems to me that everything she published was fair comment.

I suspect that Cesspit is Free will flog this to death but in order to give Abdullah the proverbial kick in the nuts he so roundly deserves, I vote we either laugh at it or ignore it from now on.

Lets get straight to the point. She is demanding that an independently elected offical be sacked. This would set a dangerous precedent for other cases. Could we see the same treatment of another from another faith? I very much doubt it. I wonder what Mrs Blears response will be to the new racist and fascist Avigdnor Liberman?

When a big man attempts to intimidate a little woman, my usual advice is “bend over suddenly, and head-butt him in the balls.

I don’t think Hazel Blears does “intimidated”.

Lets get straight to the point. She is demanding that an independently elected offical be sacked. This would set a dangerous precedent for other cases. Could we see the same treatment of another from another faith? I very much doubt it. I wonder what Mrs Blears response will be to the new racist and fascist Avigdnor Liberman?

A masterpiece of poor flaming. It features whataboutery (Liberman),. It features missingthepointery (it wouldn’t matter had Abdullah been elected by a OMOV supervised by the ERA — the government is perfectly entitled to decided which organisations it talks to and upon what conditions), it features nothearingwhatsheissayingery (Blears isn’t demanding his sacking; she’s presenting the MCB with a three way choice that he recants or resigns, or the government won’t talk to them any more), it features youreouttogetusmuslimsery (I think it unlikely that any church would profit overmuch from calling for attacks on British troops).

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha zionists