An online dictionary gives the definition of ‘Chutzpah’ thus:
noun, Slang.
1.
unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall.
2.
audacity; nerve.
This is really the only word to describe the latest actions of the Tell Mama group and that is by using the word ‘Chutzpah’.
For years, the Tell Mama group been mishandling alleged ‘hate crime’ statistics, and are always popping up on the media whenever there was an Islamic atrocity, claiming that because of such and such attack there is a ‘backlash against Muslims’. However that ‘backlash’ is something that never seems to arrive in the form that they claim it will. Tell Mama claimed that there was a ‘massive’ amount of ‘Islamophobia’ following the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby, which turned out to be nothing of the sort. In fact, following this claim Tell Mama was caught out fiddling the figures and classing people saying unkind but sometimes true things about Islam as if they were real ‘attacks’.
Tell Mama lost their public funding due to this incident of statistical dishonesty, but unfortunately this group of mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya artists are still with us and still promoting their ‘Islamic victimhood’ agenda. The list of things that are troubling to me and others about this organisation is astonishingly long and includes aligning themselves with anti-free speech groups like Hacked Off and smearing all and sundry opponents or questioners of Islam as ‘far right’, even when this description is not deserved. Also any group or individual that associates themselves with Tell Mama seems to end up with its reputation tarnished in some way because of that association. The Community Security Trust which helps Jewish synagogues with security and protection, along with Peter Tatchell, the LGBT human rights activst, are just two of many who’ve had their reputations damaged in the eyes of some members of the public, by their association with Tell Mama. In the eyes of many, Tell Mama are a dodgy organisation.
Tell Mama also have a lack of morals, there’s no depths to which they will not sink. They also have a distinct lack of ability to check the stories that are behind their reports. They didn’t think twice about highlighting a mentally ill transsexual convert to Islam who turned out to be someone lacking in credibility, and parading her as a ‘credible complainant’ before officials of the Crown Prosecution Service.
Tell Mama are a group that really likes to dish it out, but according to this article from The Guardian, it really can’t take getting criticism back. Like so many other bullies Tell Mama likes to throw its weight around but is less than keen when people hit back. Here’s the Guardian article on Tell Mama complaining that the police are not protecting them from criticism. Bearing in mind Tell Mama’s previous record for talking up minor stuff into mountains of Islamophobia, some readers may wish to take the group’s claims with a pinch, or even a shovel-full of salt. As is usual policy for this blog the original text is in italics whereas this bloggers’ comments are in plain text.
The Guardian said:
Police have been accused of failing to protect a hate crime-fighting group that was championed by Jo Cox, the MP who was shot and stabbed to death in June.
For crying out loud is there any dodgy Islamic cause that Jo Cox didn’t support? Remember that whilst Jo Cox was doing loads of happy snaps with local smiling Islamic leaders, calling for ‘more Syrian migrants please’ and whining about Islamic children, a few miles away a gang of Muslim men were being sentenced for yet another Islamic Rape Gang crime. It would have been preferable for Ms Cox to have paid more attention to the crimes that Islam encourages and help to do something for the victims of these crimes rather than support the very ideology that encourages them. Jo Cox didn’t deserve to die in the manner that she did but let’s not forget that she was a notorious panderer of Islam and I’m not surprised that this bunch of mendacious grievance mongers were championed by her
Tell MAMA, which helps victims of Islamophobia, says it has suffered a campaign of abuse that has peaked in the last eight days, with a barrage of hate messages blocking its victim helpline.
Well that’s how Tell Mama describes themselves, others feel a different description is more apt.
The group says it has repeatedly asked the Metropolitan police for help and was amazed to be told it was considered to be at low risk of harm. It says the campaign of harassment from people spouting racist abuse has paralysed the organisation.
We only have Tell Mama’s word that this is happening and anyway we need to consider that Tell Mama seems to have gone out of their way to make themselves unpopular not just with what could reasonably be described as ‘the far right’ but with a lot of others as well. Sorry, but the facts are if you belong to an unpopular grouping and have a publicly available telephone number then you are going to get some verbal abuse. It goes with the territory. With all that is going on elsewhere I’m not surprised that the Met are not prioritising this organisation’s moans. In fact it makes a change to see them putting Tell Mama lower down the pile as too often the Met, as have other police forces, asked ‘how high’ when Tell Mama have told them to jump.
It claims that while police have listened to recordings of the hate messages they have not secured them as evidence.
Maybe that’s because there is no credible threat of violence contained within them?
On Tuesday the government announced new measures to tackle hate crimes, including a review of how police handle them.
Police in England and Wales say hate crime went through the biggest-ever recorded increase during and after the EU referendum campaign.
The question is how many of these reports were genuine and also how many of them are what a reasonable person would class as an ‘attack’. As ‘hate crime’ and especially ‘hate speech’ is very much in the perception of those who hear it. It’s conceivable that a Muslim who encounters a non Muslim saying ‘I don’t like Islam very much and here’s why’ could claim that they’ve been the victim of a ‘hate crime’. The whole concept of ‘hate crimes’ are flawed. They create classes of people who get a better service from the criminal justice system than others do.
Tell MAMA says abuse spiked eight days ago and that there has been a concerted campaign of abuse on its helpline, with hate calls coming in quick succession.
Eight days ago was shortly after one Muslim had gone on the rampage in Nice with a truck and another Muslim had gone on the rampage in Germany with an axe. Following the Nice attack Tell Mama played the ‘nothing to do with Islam’ line which must have enraged many who could plainly see that the savage who murdered 84 people was EVERYTHING to do with Islam. If Tell Mama are getting hate mail or hate phone calls, then maybe they should look to how the followers of Islam have been behaving recently for the answer to that one.
Fiyaz Mughal, founder and director of Tell MAMA, told the Guardian: “In the last eight days, we have had to disconnect our phone lines and have not been able to service victims of anti-Muslim hatred because of the incessant abusive calls we have received and which have intimidated my female staff. The harassment has been so bad that we have had to leave the phones offline.”
Surely you expected that when Muslims attack, non Muslims will get angry and some will bombard your phone lines with insults.
Mughal said the abuse included racist and misogynistic terms and anti-Muslim abuse.
Or maybe it’s merely people venting their anger at an ideology that has gone out of its way to make itself disliked at best and hated at worst?
Mughal added: “A national hate crime project under constant abuse and focus by anti-Muslim bigots and far-right extremists clearly fits into a project that has risks. We are in a complex and fast-changing environment where my team should not have to put up with a poor response from the Met and with assessments of risk that have no relevance to the actual risk.”
I’m one of those who are happy to criticise Tell Mama and for various reasons that I gave above and in other articles on here. Note well the smears here. You have Tell Mama smearing those who dislike Islam in general or Tell Mama in particular as ‘bigots’ and ‘far right extremists’. Tell Mama have smeared me like this and they’ve smeared others many of whom are absolutely bugger all to do with the traditional jackboot licking ‘far right’. I would guess that the police listened to these messages and judged them to be of a nasty but non-threatening nature and left it at that. Mr Mughal claims that he’s had a poor service from the Met but so what? Lots of people get a piss-poor service from the Met, he’s not alone. Mr Mughal and his organisation is not ‘special’ he’s just being treated as poorly as the rest of us are treated by the Met.
Mughal said harassment had been suffered for years and the Met’s response had been similarly poor, in his judgment. “For over four years, my colleagues and I have been maliciously targeted with threats, floods of malicious calls, viruses being sent to us, death threats and general anti-Muslim bigotry.
If this is the case why have they not made a fuss like this before? After all it’s not as if they are publicity shy is it? Why now? What’s rattled their cage so much? Could it be funding related? Are they up for some grant money and they need to raise their profile by playing victim like this? Who knows.
“We have approached the Met and spent tens of hours filling in paperwork with little or no action taken by them. The Met have not brought a single person to book for the targeting of us.”
Maybe those who’ve criticised Tell Mama have committed no real crime?
The Met said: “We are currently investigating this allegation that has been reported in the last two weeks and are engaging with Tell MAMA about how we can assist them.”
This looks like the sort of bullshit ‘holding phrase’ that is seen so often coming out of mouths of police officers when they need to say something, anything to fill some space. They need to be seen to be doing something but are restricted in what they can do unless there is a definite and credible threat to kill or maim. People ringing up and saying the burkha is no different from a Nazi uniform or how much they hate Islam does not constitute a credible threat.
Tell MAMA was supported by Cox, who was killed by a man whose case will be treated as terrorist as it is handled by the court system.
Mughal said: “After Jo Cox, we are very on edge. Does it take someone to be physically injured for the police to get their act together?”
Jo Cox was a person who didn’t seem to find an Islamic cause that she didn’t like and maybe it’s time to re-examine the undeserved ‘sainthood’ that the Left have conferred on her? It’s pretty low for Mughal to hide behind a dead MP in order to promote his organisation but then an organisation that exploits a seriously mentally ill transsexual for their own ends, is one for whom no moral depth is too low.
There is something about Fiyaz Mughal’s story that doesn’t strike me as correct. They say that they had to disconnect their telephones which for an organisation that relies on the phone to remain in contact with their clientèle is something of a ‘last resort’ action. Surely they’d go for some other means of dealing with this such as call screening or putting more ‘hardened’ volunteers on the phone bank? I’ve done work for a short time on a sexuality and sexual health helpline and I got abuse from idiots along with fake stories and some seriously disturbed individuals calling up. However, I never shut down the line because of it. The risk that someone who was genuinely in distress might be missed because of it, meant that I didn’t throw my hands up and just shut it all down. It’s odd, very odd to see Tell Mama take a ‘last resort’ course, first. I feel there may be much more to this story than meets the eye here.
Whatever the real reason for Fiyaz Mughal’s ranting and whining to the Guardian about this what cannot be denied is that Tell Mama is getting seriously rattled by the criticism, often justifiable criticism that they are getting. Tell Mama it seems are becoming almost as unpopular as the cause that they serve and promote.
I’m gob smacked at the front and cheek of Tell Mama whining like this and claiming victim hood when they’ve dished out insults and smears for many years against their opponents. As I said earlier, Tell Mama dish out abuse but they can’t take it when it’s given back. This is a most appalling example of the outrageous chutzpah of Tell Mama and those who work for it.
Links
Original story/whine from the Guardian
Jo Cox and her undeserved ‘sainthood’
Tell Mama and the mentally ill transsexual Part One
Tell Mama and the mentally ill transsexual Part Two
Tell Mama’s Twitter feed
https://twitter.com/TellMamaUK/with_replies
Tell Mama’s website
Postscript
Tell Mama are trying to elicit support from various Lefty groups. Here for example is a supportive tweet from GALOP, a gay policing group in London
Met response unacceptable- action must taken to protect staff and to get vital hate crime service back up & running https://t.co/aVYCJSpjPN
— Galop (@GalopUK) July 27, 2016
They usual Lefty whiners are also out in force on the social media feeds but that’s about it. There doesn’t seem to be any support that goes wider than that.
