BBC to Pay £45,000 in Damages to Secretary General of MCB
This is a guest post by HP commenter Alec
Perhaps better legal minds than mine can explain how this came about. On 12 March 2009, during a broadcast of Question Time, Charles Moore, a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, stated that the senior-leadership of the Muslim Council of Britain considered the killing of British soldiers to be a “good” and even “Islamic” act to follow.
[Moore's remarks start at 2:56 here]
This had followed a political protest in which a pro-victory gaggle of Dr. Moreau’s grotesques by the name of Followers of Ahl Us-Sunah Wal-Jamaa’ah – but which newspapers such as the Guardian insisted on describing as “anti-war” and plain-old “Muslims” – had harangued a home-coming parade by the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment in Luton.
The leader of this group is Anjem Choudary, pictured here during his heady student days.
What Would Omar Bakri Mohammed Think?
Although it is an al-Muhajiroun front-group, it was on this backdrop which Moore made his comments. Any functioning democracy or healthy political debate requires discussion events such as Question Time which allows ideas and statements to be bandied about, and challenged if needs be.
We are no longer living with only a handful of media outlets – newspapers or broadcasters – owned by one or two barons, and where a maligned individual has little recourse to set a record straight. For a start, “record” is an out-of-date analogy, and there are also blogs and foreign state-owned broadcasters advertising on London buses.
The Secretary General of the MCB, Muhammad Abdul Bari, for instance, has been reported as stating that homosexuality is incompatible with his religion. He, like everyone else in this society, should be free to hold socially and religiously conservative views as long as he does not attempt to impose them on the wider society.
I find the MCB’s erstwhile prolonged boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day extremely distasteful, and their rationalization based on misconceptions or outright falsehoods, but I accepted it through gritted teeth.
I mean, it is not as if he invited to the East London Mosque a big cheese in Jamaat-i-Islami, a Bangladeshi religio-political party of which senior members were intimately involved in the 1971 East Pakistan Civil War in which upwards of two millions Hindu and Muslim peasants and dissidents were killed.
As far as I can tell, Abdul Bari’s case rested on words he offered to the Independent two years previously. Here they are:
Do you find the killing of British troops in Iraq unacceptable?
Our troops are doing an unenviable job. It is unacceptable and appalling to hear of them being attacked and I am very sorry for their families. We appear to have learnt very little from our history of interfering in other countries, and I believe, history in turn, will not look very kindly at our recent actions.
That this underpinned Abdul Bari’s argument was implicitly confirmed by a press-release from representing solicitors, Carter and Ruck; and explicitly confirmed in paragraph five of a press release from the BBC.
Thus, after between four and six years of British service personnel being killed by insurgents and violent extremists, and two years after 52 Londoners were murdered by self-immolatory terrorists, Abdul Bari said was “history will judge us”. Did he clarify this statement at any point?
In 2006, whilst still in favour with Government departments, Kaa sound/lookalike MCB-spokesman Inayat Bunglawala had responded to online questions on the Muslim Discussion Forum concerning ‘mixed messages’ from the MCB-leadership with regards to support for violent extremism. He explicitly stated that no pleasure should be taken in targetting of British service personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan:
British Muslims should in my view work with other sections of our society to ensure that British troops are brought back from both Iraq and Afghanistan without delay. It would be wrong to take any pleasure in the deaths of combatants in those conflicts, whether British, Iraqi or Afghani.
At another point, however, he was reported as stating:
I don’t agree that there is anything ambiguous about the MCB’s position on suicide bombings. We have pepeatedly made it clear that we utterly condemn the deliberate killing of all civilians whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims, and whether it is carried out in the UK or anywhere else in the world.
Does the same extend to not targetting service personnel and other decreed combatants, or is this considered an onerous task not to be revelled in?
Further discussion of alleged links between big cheeses in the MCB and violent extremism, notably Jamaat-i-Islami in Bangladesh and beyond, can be found here.
Although Moore mentioned no individual by name, Abdul Bari took it as reference to himself and sued. The presiding judge accepted the following argument from Abdul Bari’s solicitor:
[...] although Dr Bari was not actually mentioned by name, the “leadership” of the MCB was referred to, by implication referring to him in his capacity as leader and chief spokesman of the MCB.
Mr Tudor said the BBC accepted that these allegations were untrue – in fact, in 2007, Dr Bari said publicly that the killing of British troops in Iraq was unacceptable.
The BBC has agreed to pay Abdul Bari £45,000 in damages plus legal costs. Abdul Bari has stated his intention to donate they money to charity. Bear in mind, the MCB is a registered charity.
Anyone with a passing interest in libel writs in the English courts should be entirely unsurprised to hear the presiding judge’s name. He is not pictured here.
What is also puzzling me is that other senior members of the MCB *are* considered to be supportive of the targeting of British service personnel: notably the current Deputy Secretary General, Daud Abdullah. A few days before the broadcast of Question Time, the Observer had reported that Abdullah and other senior British Islamists (including Chief Imam Shaykh Abdul Qayyum of the ELM) had signed what has become known as the Istanbul Declaration. As reported, the Declartion implored the “Islamic Nation” to oppose by any means thought necessary all individuals deemed supportive of the “Zionist enemy” (cf. Israel). At the time of signing, foreign political leaders, including the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown had suggested providing peacekeeping Naval forces to monitor arms-smuggling between Gaza and Egypt. An open letter from the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears was subsequently published in the Guardian in which she stated that no further dealings would be conducted by the British Government with the MCB until it distanced itself from Abdullah’s remarks and he resigned. In a response, also published in the Guardian, Abdullah called her remarks a “misguided and ill-advised attempt to exercise control” and stated his intention to remain in position; with the apparent backing of the rest of the MCB leadership. Subsequently, he announced his intention to sue Blears, in respect of her office, should she not retract her letter and issue an apology by 15 April 2009. A letter from the Treasury Solicitors, acting on behalf of Blears, to Abdullah’s solicitors revealed their willingness to continue with such a course of action. It closed with the statement, “It follows, of course, that your offer of settlement is rejected”. No further reports of attempts to pursue a libel case by Abdullah or the MCB have been heard. So, my question is, even if Moore’s statement to be have been considered a reference to Abdul Bari, why was it considered libelous considering: * The MCB’s continued tactit toleration of its Deputy Secretary General following his endorsement of the Istanbul Declaration; *A lacklustre response from the Secretary General of the MCB when asked to condemn attacks on British service personnel; * Apparently contradictory statements, in response to internal concerns about support for violent extremism within the MCB, from another senior MCB member regarding violent extremism in which a distinction between civilians and military targets was seemingly drawn; * Existing concerns of links between senior MCB members and the violent extremism of Jamaat-i-Islami? Update: here, from 4:25 into this BBC interview recorded in 2004, is Abdul Bari on the jihadis of Fallujah: Roger Bolton “You’ve called the assault on Fallujah barbaric. Wasn’t its occupation by Iraqi militants and foreign fighters, using civilians as shields, also barbaric?” Abdul Bari “Well we have to see what happened in the beginning, as mentioned by some of your, some of the people you interviewed, and I think agreed by the international community, that the occupation of Iraq was illegal. So, if people of Iraq come up and want to fight against the occupation army, we know that, we also mentioned somewhere, we know that there could be some people from outside Iraq that are coming and that is because the main reason that the occupation happened.” Roger Bolton “Do you think therefore that armed resistance of the sort we are seeing in Fallujah is legitimate? You would support the fighters who are ranged against American and British troops?” Abdul Bari “Well, people of Iraq have to decide, because the war has been imposed on them.” Roger Bolton “I’m sorry sir, I was asking if you, not the people in Iraq, do you therefore think it is legitimate for people to fight against the American and British troops in Iraq?” Abdul Bari “Well, it’s for the people of Iraq to decide.” Roger Bolton “But it certainly could be legitimate, you’re not telling them it’s wrong.” Abdul Bari “Well, what we are saying is that the occupation of Iraq itself was wrong”
Comments
| 18 July 2009, 10:52 pm |
I expect the judicial reasoning was much the same as that which led to George Galloway repeatedly receiving substantial awards for libel around his support of various terrorist demagogues….
| 18 July 2009, 11:16 pm |
F—ing unbelievable, proving yet again that the BBC does not take democracy seriously.
| 18 July 2009, 11:28 pm |
You know when you’re getting old if you agree with Field. What have the BBC really foregone with folding like a pack-of-cards?
| 18 July 2009, 11:41 pm |
Muhammad Abdul Bari is the chairman of the East London Mosque, which runs the adjacent London Muslim Centre, home to jihadi preaching events such as these:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/13/from-yemen-to-east-london-not-via-heathrow/
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/01/22/a-jihadi-emissary-visits-whitechapel/
The mosque’s imam is Shah Jahan Abdul Qayyum. Like Daud Abdullah, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, he is a signatory of the Istanbul declaration.
From an unofficial transcription of a BBC interview in 2004:
Roger Bolton “You’ve called the assault on Fallujah barbaric, but wasn’t its occupation by Iraqi militants and foreign fighters, using civilians as shields, also barbaric?”
Abdul Bari “Well we have to see what happened in the beginning, erm, as mentioned by some of, er, your people interviewed and I think agreed by the international community, that the occupation and invasion of Iraq was illegal. So, er, if people of Iraq want to come out and fight against the occupation army, we know that we also mention somewhere know there could be some people from outside Iraq that are coming and that is because the main reason that the occupation happened”
Roger Bolton “Do you think therefore that armed resistance of the sort we are seeing in Fallujah is legitimate? Do you support the fighters who are ranged against British and American troops?”
Abdul Bari “Well, people of Iraq have to decide, because the war has been imposed on them”
Roger Bolton “I’m sorry, I’m asking if you, not the people in Iraq, do you therefore think it is legitimate for people to fight against the American and British troops in Iraq?”
Abdul Bari “Well, it’s for the people of Iraq to decide”
Roger Bolton “but it certainly could be legitimate, you’re not telling them it’s wrong.”
Abdul Bari “Well, what we are saying is that the occupation of Iraq itself was wrong”
Not all of us are cowed or fooled by lawfare.
| 18 July 2009, 11:49 pm |
Who is it in the court listing office that repeatedly selects Eady -despite so many public misgivings and criticisms about his rulings- for cases involving the press and/or privacy?
| 18 July 2009, 11:52 pm |
I fear that with legal decisions like this democracy is fu*k*d.
On the other hand we could encourage the BNP and the Jihadist’s to suicide bomb each other.
Old Sailor
| 18 July 2009, 11:52 pm |
Socialism leads to Submission.
“No War” “Peace” “Love” yes it’s an honorable dream but it can only work if ‘Everyone’ agrees to follow the rules, if ‘everyone’ aspires to reach the same pacifist goal, indeed if ‘everyone’ thinks it’s a good idea.
But they don’t, do they.
The Left never, ever, seem able to grasp this simple reality.
Years and years and years of Leftist “Progressive” thinking has led the BBC down this Islamist appeasement path, an appeasement path that always, always leads to the same inevitable shit storm.
Breaking News: It is going to get a lot worse.
| 18 July 2009, 11:53 pm |
Seriously, can: a) this be queried; b) the aforementioned be-ermine’d twat be given a comfy bath-chair to sit in for his retirement?
| 18 July 2009, 11:58 pm |
Sorry to be a bad host, folks, but I’m off to bed with a hot water bottle and soggy cat.
| 18 July 2009, 11:59 pm |
As I blogged here, the BBC has folded before – in 2007 it shelled out £75,000 to Harold Wilson’s former secretary after a receiving a legal threat over a dramatisation by Francis Wheen of an ancient story that has appeared unchallenged elsewhere.
In August 2007 Paxman used a speech at the Edinburgh International Television Festival to warn of the dangers to journalism from libel threats in an age of budget cuts:
…It is unsustainable, and I cannot see how the programme can survive in anything like its current form if the cuts are implemented. To get a single – important – film transmitted last week involved surviving a sustained barrage of astonishingly threatening lawyers’ letters from Carter Ruck and ear-bending from one of the country’s most expensive PR firms. You can’t do that if you’re replacing grizzled output editors with people on work experience, no matter how enthusiastic they may be.
| 19 July 2009, 12:09 am |
They missed a bit
“The BBC,”….
as proxy for the the British telly-tax payer…
“has agreed to pay Abdul Bari £45,000″
I have no doubt this is but a small part of the largess bestowed, in the best colonial tradition, by various agencies of the British state on Islamic causes of one type or another. This thinking is common amongst FCO wallahs, judges of a certain ilk and the Harriet Harmans of this World. It’s intended as a tacit ‘alms control’ agreement!
Perhaps another K is in order for the MCB; it’s well overdue.
One does need to take a portfolio approach to these things.
| 19 July 2009, 12:16 am |
So much whining about British libel laws, so little campaigning to change them.
| 19 July 2009, 12:19 am |
What a confused,not to mention confusing, post.It does seem strange that the BBC,sorry,Al Beeb (chortle snort snort) is settling for remarks made by Charles Moore.Surely they just hosted the arena?
| 19 July 2009, 12:27 am |
Alec, glad you said cat and not…ah!…er…nevermind!
| 19 July 2009, 12:35 am |
And people wonder why BNP is gaining support.
| 19 July 2009, 12:38 am |
“Mr Tudor said the BBC accepted that these allegations were untrue – in fact, in 2007, Dr Bari said publicly that the killing of British troops in Iraq was unacceptable.”
Do we have the text of what Bari is supposed to have said in 2007. I think Habibi’s extract sounds v. much like the MCB position: unjust war, resistance is legitimate. So I am not sure how Bari would square that by saying killing of British troops was unacceptable. Regrettable perhaps…
| 19 July 2009, 1:02 am |
What have the BBC really foregone with folding like a pack-of-cards?
And yet the Beeb will spent millions trying to keep the Balen Report secret.
I’m off to bed as well. With TWO soggy….cats.
| 19 July 2009, 2:01 am |
“And people wonder why BNP is gaining support.”
No kidding. If any non-racist, non-crazo parties cared to defend British liberty, the BNP would consist of 6 whack-jobs in the basement of somebody’s Mom.
I respect you Harry’s Place principals — you have your hearts in the right place—but the way you keep subtly, apologetically adjusting your panties, post after post, week after week, month after month, is depressing.
| 19 July 2009, 2:58 am |
I’m wondering was this the interview from 2007 that his dodgy lawyers were citing (Daily Telegraph – Nov 2007)…
QUOTE:
Although he stresses there is no justification for suicide bombing – “killing innocent people is completely forbidden, Islam is very emphatic on that” – he says British foreign policy has driven Muslims into the arms of the extremists.
“Criminal people have used that as a weapon to encourage young people, those who don’t have any anchor in themselves, [to become suicide bombers]. Iraq has been a disaster, the country has been destroyed for no reason, that had an impact on the Muslim psyche.”
UNQUOTE
Well, if so, I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s just the normal Muslim tosh with that key word “innocent” inserted. Knowing Islam, it’s easy to decode: British Armed Forces in Iraq are not “innocent” therefore they are legitimate targets.
I can’t believe the BBC folded on this one.
| 19 July 2009, 3:39 am |
Lbnaz
I suspect that Eady is listed to deal with dodgy cases whose counsel try to bullshit the courts into granting jurisdiction, precisely because of his track record in granting jurisdiction to wealthy Donkeys complaining of libellous remarks about the quality of the hay they use, the odd bale of which has apparently occaisionally been found in England.
Just think in a time of target led financial management for the very expensive and utterly wasteful court service, Eady represents one of the few certain income generators for the new court business model.
‘ere Jeff its another one of those Dodgey Donkey jurisdiction cases again what shall I do with it’
‘whats the Donkey worth?’
‘Dunno Saudi businessman gazillions I bet’
‘fast track it and give it to Eady’
‘rightey oh …did you see the football last night’
| 19 July 2009, 9:06 am |
The BBC gives £45, 000 of taxpayers money, OUR money, to a man who supports the killing of our troops. Fair enough to blame this partly on our screwed up libel system but the BBC should have faced these people down & yet, amazingly, they caved in. Something is very wrong at the BBC. How do you deal with a mindset in the corporation that has a deferential attitude toward terrorist supporting Muslims? Personally I’d suggest you sack everyone of the staff who holds those views.
| 19 July 2009, 9:16 am |
You have missed a very important point. In 2005 MCB invited the antisemitic misogynistic, suicide bombing supporter Qaradawi to Britain, They clearly supported Qaradawi, spoke out against the protest of him being allowed to come and did so last year when he was denied a visa.
They are supporters of Qaradawi. He, in turn supports suicide bombing of Israels AND UK troops in Iraq.
I realise that you can support someone and not all their views but since these are major core views that are supportive of MCB’s hatred of Israel and the so-called “War on Terror” then one might easily get confused or come to a conclusion.
Qaradawi said it on BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3875119.stm and I believe there was some discussion in interviews on the Panorama expose of MCB.
I suppose that if you accuse someone of loving tea, cheese sandwiches and cream slices then its a libel if they assert “We absolutely hate tea and would never drink it”
I didn’t listen to the video but didn’t Moore say that he formed this impression in his own meetings with MCB – hence its a he said she said case.
| 19 July 2009, 9:28 am |
On the other hand we could encourage the BNP and the Jihadist’s to suicide bomb each other.
I don’t like the word ‘encourage’ here. However, I honestly believe it could come to this. It would be a sectarian violence a bit like Northern Ireland.
The ball is in Islam’s court because they are the one’s lobbying for and creating community change.
Its interesting with the Jakarta bombings that the region is one of the highest population of Muslims and yet the country has a very strong Western-style culture proving that Islam doesn’t have to be incompatible with the West.
| 19 July 2009, 11:31 am |
No wonder the license fee is so ridiculously expensive. First the Balen report, as Morgoth rightly reminds us, then yesterday’s article in the Times detailing the preposterous amounts spent by the BBC on candles and flowers as gifts and favours for exhorbitantly paid ‘celebs’, and now this.
And to think I’m surprised when all I get for the dosh are endless repeats, D-list movies and bloody cricket, golf and snooker.
| 19 July 2009, 11:51 am |
Am I the only one here that didn’t go to bed with a wet pussy? Man, I’m depressed.
| 19 July 2009, 12:01 pm |
It seems that the Beeb is getting ready for the wholesale introduction of sharia law here by practising its dhimmitude.
They are a complete and total cowardly disgrace.
You don’t feed the already overblown egos of Islamists by caving in to them. That makes them worse and harder to contain in future.
| 19 July 2009, 12:06 pm |
One law for Islamic supremacists (Islamobotnics as someone helpfully suggested the other day) and another law for the rest.
| 19 July 2009, 12:09 pm |
Link to the Mail on Sunday article on Woody-woodpecker man:
| 19 July 2009, 12:18 pm |
Didn’t Abdul Bari invite an imam to the East London mosque who had made a speech in Bangladesh saying that Hindus are ‘excrement’?
| 19 July 2009, 12:38 pm |
The East London Mosque also received Saudi imam Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais as a guest of honour.
John Ware at least knows the score:
***
The Deputy General Secretary of the MCB is Dr Abdul Bari.
He’s also Chairman of the East London Mosque which has maintained good relations with other local faith groups.
Last year a £10m new Islamic centre was opened.
The guests included Christian leaders. The Chief Rabbi and Prince Charles also sent goodwill messages.
The guest of honour was one of the most prominent clerics from Saudi Arabia – the most austere Islamic state in the world whose ideology is the polar opposite of secular Britain.
But London’s East End is home to many faiths and the Sheikh’s theme was tolerance.
Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais, Imam, Ka’ba, Mecca, Saudi Arabia: The history of Islam is the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony. Muslims must exemplify the true image of Islam in their interaction with other communities.
John Ware: Sheikh Sudais is a leading Imam from the great mosque in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.
He had one voice for his Western audience – another for his followers in Saudi. Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais: The worst … of the enemies of Islam are those… whom he… made monkeys and pigs, the aggressive Jews and oppressive Zionists and those that follow them: the callers of the trinity and the cross worshippers… those influenced by the rottenness of their ideas, and the poison of their cultures the followers of secularism… How can we talk sweetly when the Hindus and the idol worshippers indulge in their overwhelming hatred against our brothers… in Muslim Kashmir…
John Ware: The East London mosque received $1m from the Saudis towards their new centre. The mosque’s links to Saudi go back many years.
The mosque’s Chairman Dr Bari remains to be convinced that his honoured guest Sheikh Sudais has repeatedly vilified other faiths.
John Ware: Do I take it that if you were satisfied he had said such things you would not have invited him over?
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, Chairman, East London Mosque, Deputy Secretary General, Muslim Council Of Britain: Well of course if it was proved that he exactly said this thing that you mentioned then why do you invited people who would be saying like this?
John Ware: I mean, let me say what else he’s reported to have said, he said: ‘There should be no peace with the rats of the world.’ Again he refers to Jews as the scum of the human race, offspring of apes and pigs, and he has also referred to Christians as worshippers of the cross.’ You don’t see Christians in those terms?
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: I don’t see Christians in those terms.
John Ware: You don’t see Christians in those terms?
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: No.
John Ware: No. And idol worship¿ you don’t see Hindus as idol worshippers, do you ? I’m sure you don’t, do you? Do you?
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: Well… why are you bringing all this?
John Ware: You, er, I mean you do not regard Hindus as idol worshippers?
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: Well Hindu… you mean the definition? When it’s idol worshipper, different people worship God in different manners.
John Ware: Mmm.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: Once again you are entering into the theological debate and Muslims worship one monotheistic God and many other communities may have different versions of God.
John Ware: No, I understand that.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: The Trinity may be one of them.
John Ware: I understand that.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: And it all depends how you use the word and explain the word.
John Ware: Sure, but this is harsh.. you wouldn’t… I mean no, I accept all that, but this is different, isn’t it. This is very harsh language; this in effect denounces other faiths, Hindus, Christians and Jews.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: Well denouncing any faith is not acceptable in Islam, that’s not the Prophetic teaching. We need to know the source of this and this is very dangerous thing, that character assassination of Muslim scholars and leaders are getting very widespread.
John Ware: I’m not trying to assassinate his character I’m simply trying to deal with the facts. That’s all I’m trying to do.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari: No, I know, you are mentioning… you are saying facts but we have a question whether these are facts.
John Ware: The facts are easily checkable – we found a selection of the Sheikh’s sermons on a Saudi website covering mosques in the holy cities of Medina and Mecca – with English translations.
Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais: Monkeys and pigs and worshippers of false Gods who are the Jews and the Zionists
***
| 19 July 2009, 12:51 pm |
I think I’ll steal that epithet, Botanist.
I genuinely doubt this is ‘dhimmitude’… rather complete divorce from any notions of commonsense and responsibility. The money’s peanuts to them and even if they had fought harder and been forced to pay twice, thrice that, it still would have been peanuts.
Compare to the fight over the Hutton Report, which they stood on far shakier ground (and I say this as someone who wished to boil Tony Blair to death in a vat of marmalade).
PS Minky is more saggy than soggy… she didn’t dare go out in the rain-storm.
| 19 July 2009, 1:02 pm |
Thanks Habibi.
I kind of shake my head in disbelief, I really do.
| 19 July 2009, 1:15 pm |
Look, dude, I don’t support the killing of squaddies in Iraq or Afghanistan… I support the killing/torment of Hindus and Jews and random civilians, but not the killing of squaddies in Iraq or Afghanistan. Get it right!
| 19 July 2009, 1:26 pm |
Is Bari now The MCB Incarnate? If so, then we can rightly claim the MCB to be a homophobic organization.
| 19 July 2009, 2:07 pm |
My view is that Question Time should be a forum of robus debate{ it never has been}.
I complained to the BBC regarding its compliance with the demands of MCB,received the stock reply and then elaborated my complaint.
Not received a reply since.
The MCB should have taken Telegraph News Papers to task as it was really a case of don’t shoot the messenger.The BBC are pathetic,thank god we have edgey comics like Ross on hand,they’ll give the pesky fundamentalists a run for their money.
| 19 July 2009, 2:11 pm |
Does anyone support a Machiavellian interpretation of the BBC being so quick to settle this absurd claim…
Was it done to discredit Charles Moore, who is currently leading a refuse-to-pay your licence fee campaign?
So, by settling, they implicitly finger Moore as a reactionary Islamophobe out of touch with the modern world of user-friendly religions.
I’d like to say that’s a ridiculous line of argument. But let’s face it, BBC mandarins are as duplicitous as any government minister.
May I add that I have no time for Moore’s silly, ill thought out and elitist “campaign” – which, ironically, has already involved him in dining out at the licence-payer’s expense as a BBC exec tried to schmooze him out of his campaign.
| 19 July 2009, 2:17 pm |
Ronbo, complain to your MP.
I recall a few years back, a panellist on one of the Dimblebum sessions called Ian Paisley a “wholely evil man”. There was a subsequent broadcast apology, but I don’t know if damages were involved. Anyone?
| 19 July 2009, 2:24 pm |
The B.B.C. has ‘form’ when it comes to this kind of challenge to free speech (not, one should note, hate speech). It readily agreed some decades ago to settle over a case which I will refer to only as Tory M.P.s ‘poncing about’ next to the the then Berlin Wall.
Mr Choudrey pictured reading ‘Mayfair’. Disgraceful. He should as a right thinking Moslem stick to ‘Men Only’.
| 19 July 2009, 2:28 pm |
Larkers, d’you have anything more specific? Alternatively, leave it on my blog – automatic moderation, so I can delete it afterwards.
Plus, pl-e-e-e-e-e-e-ase, is that David with the mag?
| 19 July 2009, 2:36 pm |
Also, can I check if Question Time is precisely live and, if so, could the MCB have been reasonably expect to have had to have gone for Moor first?
| 19 July 2009, 3:04 pm |
Alec, it is not live. It is broadcasted one hour after the show finishes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/question_time/faqs/default.stm
| 19 July 2009, 4:21 pm |
Welcome back metta and I take your point that perhaps Eady “represents one of the few certain income generators for the new court business model” and not only because the conversation scenario you posited hypothetically taking place at the court listings office, as humorous as it seems to me, sounds so bloody plausible.
| 19 July 2009, 4:51 pm |
I clearly heard MCB magnate Dr Daud Abdullah, on a live feed, carried by CNN from Baghdad (where he had gone with a team to discuss the fate of the afterwards beheaded hostage Ken Bigley)
calling on Iraqis to attack UK and US forces and “resist the occupation.”
You may think that was news but no-one else did and it has never been reported and Dr. Abdullah has never been asked to account for the statement.
Double dealing politically journalism is a danger and a threat.
| 19 July 2009, 4:53 pm |
(I meant to say ‘double-dealing politically correct journalism’.)
| 19 July 2009, 6:52 pm |
Charlie Moore is a corrupt lying cunt whose mentor is now in jail in America. The BBC had to apologise because it allowed the corrupt lying cunt to spill his guts on prime time TV. All you cunts, as well as Moore himself, are quite welcome to join his corrupt boss in the clink. Nothing Moore to add, really
| 19 July 2009, 7:10 pm |
Wow been banned before,what an angry person you are,I don’t think you should be banned,pitied yes but banned?
Silly personal attacks have no place on a blog like this,keep to the topic and if you wish to make statements like yours,provide the evidence base otherwise you will make yourself look terribly silly.
| 19 July 2009, 9:29 pm |
“Charlie Moore is a corrupt lying cunt whose mentor is now in jail in America. The BBC had to apologise because it allowed the corrupt lying cunt to spill his guts on prime time TV. All you cunts, as well as Moore himself, are quite welcome to join his corrupt boss in the clink. Nothing Moore to add, really” – Been Banned Before.
I happen to know Moore is the kind of Tory toff who set store by good manners in dealing with opinions with which he disagreed whilst editor at ‘The Daily Telegraph’. I doubt this principle carries any significance for you. If you are indeed part of the ‘anti-war’ movement you do it and yourself a dis-service by coming here with a stream of disgusting language in place of a serious comment.
| 20 July 2009, 10:34 am |
We are subjecting ourselves to “creeping dhimmitude”. Too much of Western society, in an attempt to be reasonable and tolerant in dealing with Islam, bends over too far backwards.
If I interpret Biff Larkin’s above comment correctly, he is complaining of this – depressing that even a staunchly independent site like Harry’s is too solicitous of Islam.
| 20 July 2009, 11:58 am |
Don’t make me laugh: ‘So much whining about British libel laws, so little campaigning to change them.’ The campaigning has started. See: http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5194646/the-growing-campaign-on-libel.thtml
| 20 July 2009, 12:45 pm |
At the risk of bringing down a complete shitstorm on my head, again, I don’t think this verdict is that complicated at all.
With reference to Moore’s remarks, I guess he was referring to Abdullah. In that instance, he should have had name Abdullah direct. By not doing so, he left himself, and anyone who disseminated his remarks, liable to action from anyone else from the leadership (being a fairly limited group of people) who hadn’t made such remarks.
The post pretty effectively scores against Abdul Bari with a number of substantiated charges of gittishness, what it doesn’t do is find him saying is that killing British soldiers is a ‘good’ and ‘Islamic’ act. In fact when he’s taken that way by interviewers (as cited here), he is extremely careful in his use of language to draw back from this, without ever really condemning such actions. The reader can draw his or her own inference from this. But it just isn’t the smoking gun that a successful libel defence requires.
This is all-based on my very rudimentary and not particularly current reading of defamation law, and I’m surprised Moore didn’t know better. Although as a fan of the literature of Robert Ludlum, I like the idea that the BBC and the MCB could have somehow have acted in concert to discredit licence fee refusenik Moore.
Cheers for that. I don’t have any further relevent questions at the moment, so will ask again… is that David with the pornie mag?