Although the Labour Party tried their hardest when they were in government to bring in laws that would prevent Britons from exercising their inalienable and inherent right to freedom of speech, they failed. That much mocked institution the House of Lords, threw up their hands in horror at Labour’s proposals to restrict criticism of religion. Their Lordships blocked this naked and blatant attempt to shield religious believers, most notably the Muslims who were becoming the main supporters of Labour. The noble Lords insisted that before the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was passed, a free speech clause must be inserted into the legislation. This is one of those cases where the unelected upper house of the British Parliament had much more of a sense of British values than the elected house of Commons that at that time was dominated by the extremely destructive Labour Party.
Because of the action of the House Of Lords, Britons had it enshrined in law that we could dislike any religion or religious practise that we wanted to. Technically it’s not against the law to call the Islamic ‘prophet’ Mohammed a paedophile, firstly because it is true as documented in Islamic scripture and secondly because the Lords thought that protecting religions from debate and criticism wasn’t altogether a good thing and came down on the side of freedom of speech.
We can call Islam nasty names, we can criticise it, we can mock it and we can laugh at it. These are our rights.
However some Islamic and Islamist organisations are dead set against Britons having the right to criticise the religion of rape, terror and oppression (this statement permitted by the 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act), and they are showing that distaste for free speech in a big way. Let’s look at one example of an Islamic group attacking a person for exercising their right to be an Islamosceptic. The example I’m going to give is that of the Tell Mama organisation, also known to many thousands of people as ‘the mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artists’.
Tell Mama have gone completely apeshit over the online activity of a Conservative Party councillor, Cllr Dr Teck Khong. They have trawled through Cllr Dr Khong’s Twitter account in order to try, and in my view fail, to find something that they feel is something they can be ‘offended’ by. Much more worrying is Tell Mama have stated that they are going to contact Cllr Dr Khong’s employers in order to put pressure on him. In other words Tell Mama are going to engage on a bullying and ‘shaming’ campaign against Dr Khong merely because he did something that is completely within the law, that of expressing criticism of Islam by retweeting other critics of Islam.
Below you can see Tell Mama’s breathless farrago of BS and bullying.
Tell Mama said:
“It has been brought to our attention that the Conservative Councillor, Cllr Dr Teck Khong, has an interesting network of friends on social media. Of particular interest has been the fact that he is a serving councillor on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council in Leicestershire. He also lists his profession as a General Practitioner in his register of interests and also is a Board member on the Governing Body of Leicester City’s Clinical Commissioning Group. He also lists an interest in a company called Healthwebwide Limited, which is also listed in his register of interests.
So far so good. Yet, a look at the social media activity of Cllr Khong leaves much to be desired in the comments that he seems to ‘like’. For example, he seems to ‘like’ the following statement made by a Twitter user on the 14th of November 2015,
“Liberty, Equality and Fraternity……perhaps alien values to Muslims and Muslim countries. In that I agree.“
He also ‘liked’ a further post from a Twitter follower (@SandLizard1968), who stated,
“hahahaha yeah. The Muslims on the average as a whole,” and the comment followed on from his statement of “malevolent aliens.”
He posted another ‘like’ from the anti-Muslim Twitter account of @MikkiL on the 2nd of January 2016 where he ‘liked’ the following statement,
“They r Halal certified Muslims don’t object as collecting halal tax from us kaffirs should be labelled.”
The ‘likes’ further continued as he hit the button for the following statement on the 27th of March 2016,
“Naturally Muslims can be humane in spite of their religion, much as not all Nazis were guilty of murder.“
And the list goes on. On the same day he ‘liked’ the following comment which referenced Islam,
“And evil religion if ever there’s one“.
On the 10th of December 2015, he also ‘liked’ an overtly anti-Muslim statement using terminology that is straight out of the lexicon of anti-Muslim bigoted terms. This is what he placed his red heart shaped ‘like’ next to,
“Muzzies don’t need any help with radicalising.“
Problematic
What is particularly problematic about this case is the fact that Cllr Khong does not fit the profile of people who are susceptible to comments which are anti-Muslim in nature. Then again, as we have said before, anti-Muslim bigotry is not the domain of one race, social status or faith, but what is troubling is the fact that a serving councillor and a man in a position of such responsibility chooses to overtly ‘like’ anti-Muslim comments of his own volition. Not only is he a General Practitioner who may well be serving diverse communities, he is also a Board Member on the Governing Body of the Clinical Commissioning Group in Leicester City Council and these are senior positions where decisions are made which can affect communities.
We will be writing to Conservative Central Office and to Clinical Commissioning Group in Leicester with this information and material and also to Oadby and Wigston Borough Council. We hope that this matter will be looked into by the relevant bodies. In the meantime, our advice to Cllr Khong would be,
“Give the ‘like’ button a rest, it may just ensure that you don’t make matters worse.”
If you want to see the screenshots of the tweets that so offended the delicate flowers of Tell Mama then click on the link below:
http://tellmamauk.org/meet-cllr-dr-teck-khong-conservative-councillor-and-general-practitioner/
This sort of behaviour is typical of the Tell Mama group. They bin riffle about the web in order to find those who disagree with Islam. It doesn’t matter how peaceful, democratic or lawfully behaving the critics of Islam are, you can rely on Tell Mama to try to make you out to be a ‘nasty racist’ or in the case of Cllr Dr Khong, someone unsuitable to work with a ‘diverse’ patient base. Tell Mama are trying to smear Cllr Dr Khong by saying that his views on Islam mean that he will treat Muslims disadvantageously when compared to non-Muslims. Nothing I’ve seen on the TM site and nothing I’ve read from Dr Khong would suggest that. This smear attempt says more about the probity and attitudes of Tell Mama than it does about Cllr Dr Khong’s attitudes, professionalism or political views. I hope that Cllr Dr Khong takes these mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artists on, as history has shown that when the dishonest poltroons of Tell Mama are challenged in the courts or in other legal and quasi legal environments, they melt like candy floss in a rainstorm.
There is a serious security aspect to Tell Mama’s smear attempt on Cllr Dr Khong. By publicising their chosen target in this way and naming their employer and other aspects of his life, Tell Mama may well have exposed Cllr Dr Khong to risk of attack by either the far Left or the Islamists who are notably quick to choose the violent option. I would to take this opportunity advise Cllr Dr Khong to take a bit of care with his personal security because of this intervention by Tell Mama. Who knows what sort of lefty or Islamist headcases Tell Mama’s article may have inspired.
There is one thing that really made me smile about this story. Tell Mama have quoted from people who have made anti-Islam comments which Cllr Dr Khong has re-tweeted. Some of these people are also on my own Twitter timeline. One Tweeter in particular @MikkiL was quoted by Tell Mama as one of those ‘offensive’ tweeters whom Cllr Dr Khong was sharing. Now this particular Tweeter is a follower of my Twitter account, @Fahrenheit211 ,and I know that this person doesn’t as far as I know, engage in racism or threatening behaviour to Muslims, but is merely an opponent of Islam, as many Britons are. This persons account is pro-Israel, pro-independence for the UK from Europe but critical of Islam. It’s this person’s right to be critical of Islam just as it’s Cllr Dr Khong’s right to be critical of Islam and my right to be critical of Islam. Tell Mama are taking people with opinions that are justified, legal and held by many Britons and trying to make these opinions and those who voice them out to be appalling racists worthy of attack or sanction. I expected no less from the liars, mountebanks and gobshites of Tell Mama.
Tell Mama seem to have completely ignored the fact that it is legal to criticise Islam. The legislation itself. The Crown Prosecution Service in interpreting the 2006 Act admits that proving whether religious hatred is ‘incited’ is difficult, quotes a Judgement that says that a reasonable member of the public should be the test as to whether or not something is religiously inciting. It is not the job of self appointed grievance mongers like Tell Mama to be the yardstick about religious incitement. The Crown Prosecution Service said:
22. This offence is committed if a person uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any threatening written material, and intends to stir up religious hatred.
23. Inciting religious hatred is therefore more difficult for us to prove as it is limited to threatening words or behaviour and we have to prove intent.
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In one case the Judge explained the meaning of “threatening” as follows: “What it doesn’t mean, is it is not abusive or upsetting. It doesn’t prohibit public discussion, criticism, antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or their followers. That is free speech is not stopped. The word threatening should have its ordinary meaning. You should ask what would be the impact of the material on a reasonable member of the public. An objective test – would a reasonable member of the public consider them threatening?”
To express a dislike of a religious path is not threatening. The only people who are doing any threatening in this case are the Tell Mama group. To Tell Mama I will say this: I’m free, as Cllr Dr Khong and others are, to insult Islam, to mock it, to take the contents of Islamic ‘holy’ books and pick them apart and to express antipathy for it.
Let’s mock Islam together, if ever there was an ideology that deserved mocking then it’s Islam.
Links
Tell Mama article that attacks Cllr Dr Teck Khong
http://tellmamauk.org/meet-cllr-dr-teck-khong-conservative-councillor-and-general-practitioner/
CPS guidance on prosecution of sexuality, racial and religious offences
Showdown in Birmingham. Tim Burton takes on the founder of Tell Mama, Fiyaz Mughal in court and wins.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/160390/sec_id/160390
If you want more stories about the mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artists of Tell Mama you will find loads of them by searching on the Fahrenheit 211 website
