Introduction

I was alerted to a story in the Ahmadiyya Times blog today that risibly depicts Shaykh Suliman Gani as an extremist. I think that this warrants a libel claim against the editor of the Ahmadiyya Times. It wouldn’t be the first time that the Ahmadiyya/Qadiani cult has used extreme language to describe Muslims or their representative bodies, but on this occasion, they appear to be nailing their colours to the mast of a shadowy new group called “Student Rights“. Interestingly, Student Rights stops short of labelling Shaykh Suliman, one of the gentlest, most humane people I’ve ever met as an extremist, but the Qadiani hate group, the only “religion” in the world with the word “hate” in their slogan and the only one that bans its members from using Facebook, was not so concerned about the use of the word “Extremist” in the headline of their edited piece.

The Student Rights article describes the views of a billion Muslims that the Qadiani cult is outside Islam as “bigoted”. Good luck with that one! It’s hardly a controversial position, being held by every Muslim authority on the planet. Since when does the normative tradition of any religion have to justify which heretical group it does and doesn’t include? Such sensationalist trash belongs in the gutter, like the defunct News of the World.

This piece might as well have been written by Basha Nazir, the Qadiani PR man caught with his pants down trying to get his members to lie to Channel 4 about their identity. This was in a vain attempt to game Darshna Soni in the wake of their failed hate campaign of 2010, based on a leaflet that didn’t exist. In fact, many releases we have seen lazy journalists and politicians use have come straight from the pens of the Qadiani spin-masters. If only journalists and politicians did a little more homework.

Curious about this new, somewhat opaque group and its unusual eagerness to attack mainstream Muslim figures like Shaykh Suliman Gani and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, I decided to look more closely at their board of advisors. You might be surprised at what crawled out of the woodwork, but then again, perhaps not.

The first question we surely must ask is, of what relevance is Islamophobia to student rights? The naming of this oddball site is one of many anomalies. One can only imagine that “student rights” acts as an overt façade for Islamophobia, because let’s face it, Muslim students are British too, and also have rights. Perhaps the Islamophobic, Qado-Zionist-sympathising board of Student Rights might be interested in the rights of Qadiani students ordered by their leaders not to mix with Muslim students at university? That’d be worth a blog on social cohesion.Or perhaps they might be interested in the old men of the Ahmadiyya covertly spying on students?

I think it’s very important that Muslims become aware of this shadowy hate group and understand that the agenda of the Zionists, the Islamophobes, the Extreme Right and the Qadiani Ahmadiyya is aligned. If you need to see proof of that, you need only visit the Student Rights blog, which frankly, makes Mad Mel look, well, not so mad.

I’m sure Hamza Tzortzis will not be worried by this stupid bunch of clowns, and neither should Shaykh Suliman. All that’s happened is that this group has helped clarify that the Qadiani agenda is reprehensible to all Muslims. Thanks to Student Rights for making this crystal clear!

Hilariously, the Student Rights blog carries on with its absurd canards about the Islam Channel and other mainstream Muslim representatives, denouncing many of our leading figures and conflating them arbitrarily and clumsily to more extreme figures.

On then, to a quick analysis of the board of Student Rights.

Rt Hon Jim Fitzpatrick MP

Jim Fitzpatrick, a Government minister, has publicly condemned the Muslim tradition of separating men and women at weddings. The farming minister and his wife walked out of the marriage ceremony of a constituent after discovering they would have to sit in separate rooms. He said the gender segregation was a sign of increasing radicalisation and was damaging to social cohesion.

However, Muslim leaders insist the custom is traditional at Islamic weddings as well as in mosques, and expressed surprise that Mr Fitzpatrick, a third of whose east London constituents are Muslims, was unaware of the fact.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, a founding member of the Muslim Council of Britain, said:

“I think in the interest of cohesion it would be better if Mr Fitzpatrick established more contact with the Muslim community. It shows a lack of interest on the part of the MP to engage with people with different backgrounds and sadly it reflects badly on him.

Source: Daily Telegraph

Even the right wing Telegraph condemned Fitzpatrick’s actions as “foolish and inappropriate“

George Galloway went further:

“I am absolutely amazed and astonished that a Government minister with a substantial Muslim minority in his constituency should have decided to give such a gratuitous insult to so many Muslims.”

The Ahmadiyya do not allow mixed weddings themselves. Perhaps they should think twice before backing Student Rights. Or perhaps Fitzpatrick, who advises a site so firmly on the side of the deceptive Ahmadiyya cult, should be advised as to the the latter’s real nature? (Perhaps he should just be very careful what he puts his name to, if he wants to avoid future accusations of Islamophobia.)

Fitzpatrick of course rejects accusations of Islamophobia and as recently as 2010 asked the Muslim community to judge him on his record. It’s entirely possible that he was misrepresented or given bad advice. In which case, he needs to be made aware of the extremely divisive agenda of Student Watch and to understand that the figures this group is attacking are mainstream. Baroness Warsi was courageous enough to stand up to this type of scaremongering and warned against having Muslims divided into extremists and moderates. This approach legitimises caricatures and stereotypes and allows the question “So when did you stop beating your wife?” to be asked without concern. The Ahmadiyya should be utterly ashamed of peddling such hatred and continuing its smear campaign, but it’s no surprise, as Muslims have continually warned.

My personal feeling is that Fitzpatrick should have it brought to his attention that Student Rights would not have the backing of any legitimate Muslim representation. He would find that his own East London community would be shocked to find him on the board of such a virulently anti-Muslim organisation that is also so openly pro-Qadiani.

Rt Hon Tom Brake MP

Brake is the MP for Carshalton and Wallington, where many of his constituents are Qadianis. He has attended their annual Jalsa Salana event on several occasions and is totally supportive of their offensive Islamophobic campaign. Like a few other gullible politicians, he was taken in by the opportunistic hate campaign orchestrated by the Qadianis in 2010, where it was found that false statements had been made (on oath!) by the Ahmadiyya, and which ended up making the Qadianis look duplicitous in the eyes of the police. Brake hosted a tour of the House of Commons for the Lahori Ahmadiyya. His bias is therefore self-evident.

Robert Halfon MP

Halfon, a Tory MP is a former Political Director of the Conservative Friends of Israel. We could stop right there, but let’s continue. Halfon is no stranger to launching attacks on Muslims or their representation. Inayat Bunglawala reported Halfon making the following disgusting and defamatory accusation about the Muslim advocacy group Engage in the House of Commons:

“Will the Leader of the House find time for an urgent statement on iEngage, the secretariat of the newly formed all-party parliamentary group on Islamophobia? iEngage has a track record of being aggressively anti-Semitic and homophobic, and has extensive links with terrorism in Tunisia and the middle east.”

Inayat correctly reported that Halfon can only get away with such statements because he was protected from libel by parliamentary privilege.

Inayat has challenged Halfon in strong terms to repeat his comments in public. Halfon is an Islamophobic monster who would find much in common with the Ahmadiyya cult’s chief apologists.

Rt Hon Kim Howells

Dr. Kim Howells is a Labour Friend of Israel. Spotting a pattern here? Pro-Israeli, Pro-Qadiani, anti-Muslim haters and possibly one or two unwitting cohorts who got suckered in without realising what was going on.

MPACUK reported in 2009 that Howells suggested the government use the money it would save by pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq to spy on Muslims. One should remember that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya cult offered his spying services to the occupying government of the time.

Rt Hon Denis MacShane

It’s hard to know where to start with this nutty Zionist attack dog, but Inayat Bunglawala nails this confirmed Zionist for a lot more than Zionism and Islamophobia. This offensive man with zero credibility amongst Muslims and millions of others was also found to have claimed £125k in MP expenses for his garage. Why didn’t this hater end up in jail? Probably because Zionism got to his head and made him completely nuts.

Halfon isn’t the only MP abusing parliamentary privilege to spread lies. MacShane also smeared MPACUK earlier in 2011.

It’s not just Muslims who have problems with this crazy guy, our Jewish friends do too.

Shiraz Maher

A good background on Maher can be found at Indigo Jo Blogs in the article Shiraz Maher fails to prove his point (again)

Engage shows Maher criticising the US Ambassador for visiting the East Lonon Mosque.

Maher, who sports a trademark Qadiani beard (don’t worry, I don’t actually think he’s a Qadiani) supported Hazel Blears in her unprecedented and stupid war against the MCB in the wake of Israel’s assault on the people of Gaza in 2009. Maher then demanded the resignation of Daud Abdullah, sounding just like a Qadiani, a Chaa-wala to use Asghar Bukhari’s interesting metaphor.

A pretty good picture of Maher is painted by his friends and the company he is associated with, including the likes of Ed Husain, who after leaving the discredited Quilliam, now works for the Council on Foreign Relations. Maher counts amongst his admirers The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh. (The Sun of course, recently apologised for faking a story about a Muslim bus driver, not the first time they’ve invented negative stories about Muslims in an attempt to fan Islamophobia.)

One wonders whether the Qadianis will also at some point apologise for inventing the story of a a hate leaflet in 2010 that acted as a driver for their Islamophobic campaign of 2010, brought crashing to a halt thanks to numerous embarrasing leaks on thecult.info and the brave and upright work done by Akber Choudhry in defending the Khatmenabuwwah Academy in East London. Many Muslims took part in exposing the underhand shenanigans of the Qadianis and they would be too numerous to list, but they know who they are and they are a credit to Muslims and to Britain.

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill

He was the Chair of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel until 2010 and is currently a Vice President. I think we can end the discussion right there, don’t you?

Daniel Johnson

(We’d be grateful if anyone could source information on Johnson for us.)

Dr Alan Mendoza

Mendoza and Ramm appear together an awful lot with Douglas Murray, who made this contribution to social cohesion and harmony at a conference in the Netherlands in 2006:

“It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop…. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition.”

Far be it for me to use “guilt by association” as a tactic. let’s delve further into Mendoza specifically. He is the Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society, which includes as signatories the Rt Hon Michael Gove (an Islamophobe), Denis MacShane (Zionist, expenses monkey, liar and Islamophobe), Stephen Pollard (Editor, the Jewish Chronicle) and our friend Robert Halfon MP, whose Islamophobic credentials were established above.

Mendoza came down heavily in favour of Israel, casting them as peacemakers in the wake of their horrific assault on Lebanon in 2006.

Google Mendoza, Ramm and Murray to hear them whine on if you’re really curious.

Benjamin Ramm

I haven’t looked too hard on material for him, but Lenin had this to say in 2005:

The editor of The Liberal, Ben Ramm, was the most unbearable speaker of the whole night. Snide, cocky and actually insistent on a return to Free Trade – Victorian England style! Why he was invited, I shall never know. He was uncompromisingly for the Liberal Democrats, of course, and was heckled by those who are familiar with the Liberal record in Sheffield, Liverpool and elsewhere. I tuned out.

Now we can’t condemn a man for being snide and cocky, after all, I’ve been that too at times. What we can condemn a man for is a return to Free Trade Victorian England style. This was uncompromising and made Thatcherism look like revolutionary socialism in comparison.

However, his position on Islam and Zionism isn’t clear, so he gets let off the hook. I guess he’s in because he hangs out with the Zionist Mendoza and the Islamophobe Murray.

Alex Radzyner

Radzyner is the writer of the ‘London Theater Goer’ blog.

***

Conclusion

So there you have it. A list of mostly rather unsavoury characters to say the least. As to who actually writes the Student Rights blog, it’s hard to tell, but given the list above and the brazenly pro-Qadiani agenda, given the heavy Zionist influences and the cast of usual suspects, it’s very easy to see why Qadiani Ahmadiyya is regarded with such suspicion by Muslims and anyone who stands against racism, right-wing extremism and Islamophobia. After all, it was very much the rhetoric displayed by the Student Rights team that led to Anders Breivik mass murdering dozens of kids in Norway.

Given the utter lack of mainstream credibility that “Student Rights” will get thanks to the extreme positions taken up by the majority of its board, I’d advise the targets of this farcical blog-rag not to worry too much about its hysterical, frothing, but really funny output.  I’d also advise a few of the board members who value their remaining credibility to distance themselves from this hateful site.

It’s time for the Qadianis and their friends to stop being troublemakers, to stop telling lies, to stop exaggerating the so-called “Muslim threat” and to start building bridges. I doubt they will do that. They, like many cohesion-haters, including the far right, Islamophobes and Zionists seek to divide communities by creating a false picture of hatred and seeing monsters where there aren’t any. There is little doubt that groups like the Ahmadiyya cult help to stoke the fear that inspired Anders Breivik to kill scores of Norwegian socialist children in a chillingly political massacre, a crime that is more popularly described as terrorism. We mustn’t let such groups deceive our institutions and we mustn’t let them attack our representative bodies without an answer.

(Thanks to Islamophobia Watch and Engage, many of the above stories were documented by them)

(A previous version of this article stated the following: Brake hosted a tour of the House of Commons for the Ahmadiyya – after feedback, we have clarified this line to qualify Ahmadiyya with “Lahori”.)