This blog is indebted to one of the many, by necessity nameless, ‘document seekers’ who have supplied me with a link to a parliamentary document containing evidence submitted by the mendacious grievance mongers of Tell Mama to the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC). It is a document which, of course, as can be expected of Tell Mama, contains an awful lot of stuff that could easily be seen as dishonest at worst or disingenuous at best. In fact some parts of it are so counter-factual that they are as laughable as a person saying ‘it fell of the back of a lorry’ or ‘I found it in the street’ as defence to a theft charge, when caught in possession of a brand new and very hot television or other consumer item.

This is a classic example of Tell Mama’s whining and also an example of how they include dubious information in their ‘evidence’ that is now known to be false or questionable. They do this either in the hope that people will not remember the bad things they’ve done, such as exaggerating the levels of ‘Islamophobia’, or because Tell Mama staff have such good connections in Government and police circles that in their hubris they believe themselves to be ‘untouchable’. Either way the evidence that they have submitted to the HASC will only increase criticism of this troublesome and heavily publicly funded organisation and/or the activities of their founder Fiyaz Mughal.

The evidence given to the HASC I have pasted in full below. As is usual policy for this blog, the original text as submitted to Parliament is in italics, where as this blog’s comments will be in plain text. I have also included TM’s own notes to the document for the sake of completeness and these are also italicised. Not all the links may work via clicking directly on them and may need to be cut and pasted. In addition I have included in the Links section at the bottom of this piece a copy of the original .pdf from Parliament.

Supplementary written evidence submitted by Tell MAMA

1. We thank the Home Affairs Select Committee for inviting Tell MAMA to provide oral evidence for its ongoing inquiry into hate crime and its violent consequences. We were asked to provide further details in a number of areas: on incidents in schools and educational institutions, Twitter’s response to anti-Muslim hate on their platform, anti-Muslim language in political campaigns, issues of sectarianism and intra-Muslim hate in the UK, and trigger events. We have provided further details on all these areas below.

This is just Tell Mama’s taqiyya machine warming up.

Tell MAMA’s core values

2. Tell MAMA’s commitment to supporting the human rights of all minority groups in the United Kingdom, evidenced by our continued cooperation with the LGBT, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, and Christian communities nationwide are unwavering. This includes the first ever awards ceremony to celebrate those who stand against all forms of hate. Unfortunately, we have come under attack from some organisations that claim to work on Islamophobia but who do not share our core basic values. 

3. We have stated on numerous occasions and will continue to state the fact that activists who work on anti-Muslim hatred or Islamophobia cannot be taken seriously when they have a track record of making statements which malign other communities, or when they promote stereotypes and tropes based on their views on the Middle East. We understand that the issue of the Middle East is one that brings out passions on all sides, but we have come across activists who want action on Islamophobia, whilst previously having made statements maligning other communities, such as Jewish communities. When questioned, they use the term ‘Zionists’ in some instances, as a replacement for Jewish communities. This is unacceptable especially when working in the field of hate crime work and what is also unacceptable is when other activists promote simple untruths around LGBTQI equality work. To tackle anti-Muslim hatred effectively, activists must be willing to speak out openly against ALL forms of hatred and intolerance and also stand up for the rights of groups within Muslim communities, such as gay Muslims when they are targeted for both homophobia and anti-Muslim hatred. This is just one example, and this does not mean that Muslims have to promote other people’s choices and lifestyles, however, it does mean that they should defend such communities against intolerance, hatred and prejudice. This is the acid test of real human rights campaigning work, when sometimes difficult conversations have to be had internally and externally beyond communities on the basis of the defence of the human rights of all people.

On the face of it, this all looks peachy. The idea of ‘no hate whatsoever’ looks on the face of it attractive, but unfortunately hate is an emotion and there are arguments to be had about whether it’s right that the State regulate people’s emotions. Personally I think it should not. In this section Tell Mama have unwittingly revealed something deeply unpleasant about the British Muslim community and that is the massive levels of Jew and Gay hatred that exists within it. Their comment about ‘activists who work on anti-Muslim hate or Islamophobia’ issues also being the same people who are likely to have genocidal views on ‘Zionists’ is highly instructive. Reading between the lines you get the impression that the number of Muslim activists who want to work with Tell Mama is dwarfed by the number of Muslim activists who do not, or who hold the false belief that Tell Mama is a ‘Zionist plot’ and that their founder Fiyaz Mughal is paid for by ‘Zionists’. The evidence is correct when it states that the word ‘Zionist’ is used in Islamic and far Left circles as another word for ‘Jew’ just as it is used by the jackboot-licking Hitler worshippers. What this paragraph tells me is that although the number of jackboot-licking Hitler worshippers is very small in the wider non-Muslim population, there are huge numbers of the Islamic analogues of these jackboot-lickers in the Muslim community in the United Kingdom. If Jew-hating Muslims were not such a major issue for Tell Mama, then they would not need to have made such a big deal out if it. Before we leave this subject it may be wise to reacquaint ourselves with some of Mr Mughal’s previous associates, not all of whom could remotely be seen as being ‘friendly to Jews’. One of these previous associates, who alleges that Mughal worked closely with her and supported her, until her utterances became too public for Mughal to be seen to be endorsing, is the alleged Holocaust denier Alison Chabloz. More detail of Mughal’s association with Chabloz can be found via this link: https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2017/01/19/putting-a-fox-in-charge-of-the-hen-house-fiyaz-mughal-of-tell-mama-appointed-to-holocaust-memorial-day-board/ Personally I feel it to be utterly disgusting that a person who appeared to be on quite friendly terms with an alleged Holocaust denier, until it became politically expedient to drop her, should sit on the board of the UK Government’s official Holocaust Memorial Day board.

4. We empathise and fully understand that the vast majority of British Muslims feel that they are under the media and political spotlight after the recent ‘Muslim Ban’ which was proposed by Trump against specific Muslim majority countries. Such proposals go against the fundamental libertarian principles of the Constitution of the United States and simply play into the hands of groups who want to divide communities. We believe that through such adversity, good will always triumph, though this needs the efforts and energies of all communities. We cannot sit back and assume that there is a progressive trend that will change society for the better. Recent events have shown that hatred and intolerance takes root when communities assume that hard fought human rights cannot be discarded and altered and the greatest threat to communities actually comes from apathy.

This is the sort of unadulterated, dishonest, politically-correct, Islamic victimhood-claiming clap-trap which we’ve come to know and despise from Tell Mama. Let’s read between the lines and try to discern the reality of the meaning of this paragraph and not just take Tell Mama’s words on trust. Tell Mama say that British Muslims feel that they are under a ‘media and political spotlight’, well maybe they are but this is very little to do with President Trump’s selective visa pause on certain Muslim majority nations and is much more to do with the piss poor behaviour of Islam’s followers. I believe that the public opprobrium that British Muslims are said by groups like Tell Mama to be subjected to, are more to do with the number of murders, terror attacks, mass rapes and other crimes committed by Muslims in the name of Islam, rather than President Trump’s executive order for a visa pause from certain nations.

I also believe that Fiyaz Mughal and his ‘subjects’ of his Empire of Lies have got it profoundly wrong when they say that policies such as that of President Trump play into the hands of those who wish to divide. This statement is utter bullshit. The majority populations in many countries have often extended the hands of friendship to their new Muslim neighbours, only to be repaid with violence, crime or being ethnically cleansed from areas where Islam has taken over. It’s not because President Trump has made a particular decision which explains why people view Islam and Muslims with a degree of justifiable suspicion. It’s the bad behaviour of a significant minority of Muslims and the almost total silence or statements of extreme dishonesty, that come out of the mouths of Muslim spokespersons following the latest example of an Islam inspired atrocity. As regards the ‘progressive trend’ then maybe people have had enough of it? Maybe people have had enough of seeing their areas and their communities ripped apart or of seeing too many examples of two tier policing? Maybe people have also had enough of the coercive collectivism that seems to lie behind too much of what passes for ‘progressive thought’ these days?

Furthermore, we believe that Muslim communities are not unique and special and marking them out as such also leads to Muslim communities being seen through a subjective prism.

I disagree. Islam is different. After all when was the last time you saw a Jewish suicide bomber or an Anglican terrorist, a Hindu headchopper, or Sikh gang rapists or a Jain ‘jihadi’? The answer is you do not, or at least the incidents of such activities are remarkably rare. Islam on the other hand is considerably more violent than other faiths and for Tell Mama not to see this and to not mention this to Parliament is an act of monstrous dishonesty. It would be better for Tell Mama to be honest and admit there are aspects of Islam that are troubling and incompatible with modern societies.

Muslims simply want to live their lives peacefully, make informed choices and access equal rights just like others and this means that they want to live their lives free from targeted hatred and intolerance.

I think all people should be able to live their lives unmolested for the things that they cannot change such as race or sex or disability. However, although I agree that there are many Muslims who live their lives peacefully and are integrated, that should not blind us to the fact that there are a large number of Muslims, both in the UK and overseas, who do not do these things. The right to live in peace unmolested should not ban criticism of ideologies, of which Islam is one.

Of all sections of Muslim communities, it is visible Muslim women who are most affected by street based anti-Muslim hatred and a mix of racism, anti-Muslim hatred and gender hatred continues to affect this group of citizens. We can all agree that this is unacceptable and goes against the very values that we hold dear.

To this I shall say what I’ve said when similar statements have been made about ‘hijab pulling’ allegations. These sort of alleged attacks are little to do with gender and much more to do with a dislike for the ideology that certain Islamic vestments signify. A good analogy is with a Nazi uniform being worn in London’s Whitehall in 1940. People at that time would recognise that this uniform was a signifier for an ideology that they know was a threat and the idiot who wore it would probably get arrested or a severe kicking or at the very least would be slagged off. The same emotion holds true for Islamic garb. People see it, know that it represents a hostile ideology and sometimes behave towards the wearer in a hostile way. It needs to be said at this point that there are a large number of fake ‘hijab pulling’ stories about, at least one of which, even though it was proven to be false by court, was still being carried on the Tell Mama site for months and treated as ‘truth’.

1

Cohen, N. (2016). ‘How brave Muslims are being silenced’, The Guardian. URL:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/04/how-brave-muslims-are-being-silenced

Trigger events and anti-Muslim hate

5. Based on our data collection since 2012, Tell MAMA has demonstrated that ‘trigger events’ lead to short-term spikes in Islamophobic hate crime based on data from various sources. After the murder of drummer Lee Rigby in 2013 we received over 110 cases in a week when we averaged between 25-30 a week at that time. This showed a 260% plus increment in cases within 10 days of the terrorist attack, which was a significant spike caused by the terrorist murder and at a time when we had just started the project. This spike was corroborated by Metropolitan Police data.

From data from the Metropolitan Police, we calculated a short-term spike of 286% in hate crimes after the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in May 2013 over three months.

This part of the evidence to Parliament’s HASC bears a remarkable resemblance to the sort of dishonest figures that Tell Mama put out in the contemporaneous period to the Islamic murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby. These figures were comprehensively busted at the time by Andrew Gilligan of the Daily Telegraph. What Mr Gillgan found is that a very large proportion of the ‘attacks’ claimed by Tell Mama were far from being the sort of physical attacks on people and property that Tell Mama were spinning them as, but were mostly people saying unkind,but often true, things about Islam. Here’s the link to the report put out by Mr Gilligan in the Daily Telegraph at the time. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10093568/The-truth-about-the-wave-of-attacks-on-Muslims-after-Woolwich-murder.html

Similarly, there were significant spikes after the terror attacks in Paris in January and November of a similar magnitude that we documented based on Tell MAMA data. 2 The attacks in November 2015 led to a 300% increase in hate crime in the three weeks following the attacks when compared to the three weeks prior. Our reports (cited above) provide extensive detail on trigger events if the committee requires further references. Our data, however, shows that these incidents tend to be part of the ‘white noise’ that Dr. Chris Allen describes in his oral evidence. We see that over time, the average level of anti-Muslim hate is slowly increasing and trigger events play an important role in this.

So, basically what we have here is a situation where Muslims kill and maim people in horrific terror attacks, carried out in the name of Islam, in a major European capital city; which leads people to distrust Islam and Muslims more. Well all that can be said to that is: ‘no shit Sherlock’. I would put little faith in Tell Mama’s claim that in November 2015 there was a ‘300%’ increase in ‘hate crime’. What this means in reality is that this was a rise in ‘reported’ ‘hate crime’. This is a completely different thing from there being actual proven crimes, these are allegations and often shonky, subjective and dishonest allegations at that. This is because a ‘hate crime’ is treated as such if the alleged ‘victim’ believes that they’ve been the victim of a ‘hate crime’. Not only is this highly subjective, as what offends or bothers me may be radically different from what the person next to me perceives as ‘offensive’ or an ‘attack,’ but the whole ‘hate crime’ field is a honey pot for those who wish to make false and unprovable allegations against others for either personal or political reasons. This sort of dishonesty is facilitated by the Crown Prosecution Service, as under CPS guidelines alleged victims do not have to provide any evidence whatsoever, apart from your subjective perception, that a ‘hate crime’ has occurred. The whole ‘hate crimes’ idea is a corruption of the whole concept of equal justice. Furthermore, if Muslims find themselves the target of public suspicion and distrust at the present time, then that is entirely the fault of their Muslim co-religionists. It is they who have planted hatred of Islam in the minds of a large number of reasonable non-Muslim people, by raping, bombing and murdering their way around the world.

Anti-Muslim language and ideology in political campaigns

I’ll take this next bit of Tell Mama dissembling in sections.

6. Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant discourse in the EU referendum campaign significantly affected Britain’s Muslim communities.

Proof please Tell Mama. Proper proof, not some guff from an Islamic ‘community leader’ or some fake ‘hate crime’ study by one of their tame ‘academics’ or equally fake ‘charities’ such as Stop Hate UK. I won’t hold my breath waiting for said proof.

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood left the official Leave campaign as the debate had been ‘hijacked’ with anti-immigrant and racist discourse.

All this means is a Labour MP didn’t want to have to deal with public anger at excessive levels of and inappropriate types of immigration.

3 A Vote Leave board member, Arabella Arkwright, resigned for retweeting anti-Muslim content. The content that she retweeted involved a young white British girl who was surrounded by women in burqas. The text reads, ‘Britain 2050, why didn’t you stop them grandad’.

An examination of the background to this tale tells a slightly different story to that alluded to by Tell Mama. Mrs Arkwright resigned to avoid the Vote Leave campaign being mired in a row over what is essentially a non-story, but which the Left, including Leftist newspaper the Guardian talked up. I also suspect that Mrs Arkwright may have jumped in order to protect family business interests, which might have been adversely affected by lefty demonstrations or even bomb threats from Muslim extremists etc. As regards the image of the young white British girl surrounded by Burkhas then this is a valid fear for many Britons and a visit to some of Britain’s more Islamised areas shows just why such a fear is valid. I’d no more want a daughter of mine to go to school with girls who are taught from birth that they are second class citizens who need to be imprisoned in mobile canvas tents, than I would send my Jewish son to a school dominated by Muslims in London’s East End. Either course of action would be bad in many ways.

4 Another investigation also highlighted the influence of far-rights groups activists from BNP, EDL and National Front on supporters of Brexit. 5 In fact, the unofficial pro-Leave campaign had specifically targeted far-right audiences on Facebook. 6

Who did this ‘investigation’? A look at the references shows that Tell Mama are basing this claim on one sensationalist Daily Mail story which related to a mere few dozen individuals known to be associated in the past with British National Party and National Front activity. Firstly, this is a tiny number of people, in comparison to all those many thousands of people who supported the Leave campaign and are not ex-BNP or NF types. It should also be noted that the Leave campaign was infiltrated by these few individuals, whereas the Labour Party seems to have no problem whatsoever allowing in former neo-fascist members of the November 9^th Society to become members or representatives.

As usual we see Tell Mama statements that become something very different when we start to peel them apart. Not for nothing do I refer to Tell Mama’s founder, Fiyaz Mughal and Tell Mama itself as a man and a group who I would not trust to sell me a secondhand car.

7. Nigel Farage also suggested that accepting refugees—something folded into the discourse on Brexit—from countries where women are seen as ‘second class citizens’ (invoking a trite Islamophobic trope) will lead to sex attacks on women in the UK. 7 Most infamously, Farage spoke in front of a poster showing 100s of people entering Europe, entitled ‘Breaking Point’ and was likened to Nazi propaganda. 8 This is not isolated to Nigel Farage, another UKIP MEP, Jane Collins, also tweeted ‘Muslim men have been carrying out sex attacks in the UK.’ 9 Such ideas were promoted on Breitbart’s website in 2015 blaming migrants and Muslims for a ‘rape epidemic’

Sadly for Tell Mama, it appears that Mr Farage was correct to say that accepting refugees would bring problems. It’s also not an ‘Islamophobic trope’ but fact that women in Islamic societies are treated like second or even third class citizens. Also it’s plain to see that importing Islam and its followers causes an increase in sex attacks. It is unfortunately an observed fact. Both Germany and Sweden have seen increases in sex attacks and a fear among women of being the victim of a sex attack since they unwisely opened their borders to these alleged ‘refugees’. As for trying to pass off Jane Collins’ statement that ‘Muslim men have been carrying out sex attacks in the UK’ as a dishonest statement, well I think this is disgusting dishonesty on the part of Tell Mama themselves. There have been a multitude of attacks by Muslim men against non Muslim children and young women and these attacks occur not just in ‘Rotherham’, but in any town or city that has a significant number of Muslim men living in it.

2 See Littler, M and M Feldman. (2015). Tell MAMA Reporting 2014/2015: Annual Monitoring, Cumulative Extremism, and

Policy Implications. London: Tell MAMA and Tell MAMA. (2016). The geography of anti-Muslim hatred: Tell MAMA Annual Report 2015. London: Tell MAMA.

3 Wright, O. (2016). ‘EU referendum: Second MP ready to quit Leave campaign amid racism concerns’, The Independent. URL:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-khalid-mahmood-brexit-second-mp-ready-to-quit-leave-campaign-amid-racism-concerns-a7073256.html

4 Mason, R. (2016). ‘Vote Leave board member quits over anti-Muslim retweets’, The Guardian. URL:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/20/vote-leave-board-member-quits-over-anti-muslim-retweets

5 Walters, S. Owen, G. Cahalan, P. (2016). ‘The neo-Nazi with a swastika on her breast… and Vote Leave badge on her vest:

From Holocaust deniers to EDL fascists posing at the Kray twins’ grave, the violent thugs and racists hijacking the Brexit campaign’, The Daily Mail. URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3625503/The-neo-Nazi-swastika-breast-Vote-Leave-badge-vest-Holocaust-deniers-EDL-fascists-posing-Kray-twins-grave-violent-thugs-racists-hijacking-Brexit-campaign.html

6 Lyons, J. (2016). ‘Farage campaign courted far right’, The Times. URL: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/farage-campaign-courted-far-right-njrqxhkqb

7 Farage, N. (2016). ‘Nigel Farage speech on immigration and Brexit’. YouTube. URL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZLJ8gFtCnE

8 Stewart, H. Mason, R. (2016). ‘Nigel Farage’s anti-migrant poster reported to police’, The Guardian. URL:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/nigel-farage-defends-ukip-breaking-point-poster-queue-of-migrants

9 Elgot, J. Mason, R. (2016). ‘Nigel Farage: migrant sex attacks to be ‘nuclear bomb’ of EU referendum’. The Guardian. URL:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/05/nigel-farage-migrant-sex-attacks-to-be-nuclear-bomb-of-eu-referendum

2in an article authored by Anne-Marie Waters who sits on the leadership board of the far-right Pegida UK movement.

8. The Leave.EU website distributed anti-Muslim literature during the campaign prior to the referendum. One poster foregrounds David Cameron in a military uniform with an assault rifle, against a backdrop of explosions and militants. The caption state ‘in reality the EU Free Movement regimes like ISIS very well indeed’

Isn’t this merely a quote from stuff that ISIS spokesmen have themselves said? Like it or not, and Tell Mama won’t, Jihadis have made excellent use of the EU free movement policy and the German-led lunacy of open borders for ‘refugees’.

10 . Such imagery demonstrates how Islamophobic attitudes risked hijacking the Brexit debate.

So pointing out the risk of ISIS terror is ‘Islamophobic’ now is it?

A referendum on membership in a political union became framed by such groups as a referendum on cultural difference and the invention of a ‘threat’ of Islam.

Last time I looked the majority of terror attacks were coming from weaponised Islam not weaponised Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism or Hinduism. There is a known and recorded threat from Islam and putting this in ‘scare quotes’ doesn’t reduce that risk one little bit.

This aspect of the campaign used one of the cheapest forms of political discourse—hate and fear—to garner an audience and support.

You may see this as ‘hate and fear’ but many others would see it as telling the truth about a violent ideology called Islam. If people want to see naked hate expressed in written form then I would urge them to read the Koran and the Hadith to see the sort of murderous and genocidal hatred expressed towards Jews, Christians and Hindus that lies behind the ideology of Islam.

Other posters from Leave.EU continued to use Islamophobic discourse, with one poster encouraging viewers to ‘act now’ before an ‘Orlando-style atrocity’ occurs in the UK.

Fair do’s, nobody with any sense wants to see an Orlando atrocity in the UK. It’s also true that the likelihood of such an attack coming from a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu is considerably smaller than the chance of an attack of this sort coming from a deranged Muslim.

It is therefore of little surprise that various reports sent to us made direct reference to the outcome of the EU referendum. 11 Figures would later reveal that racist or religious abuse incidents recorded by police in England and Wales increased by 41% in the month after the Brexit vote. The sharp increase in incidents declined in August but remained a higher level than prior to the referendum. 12

The idea that police forces universally and without prompting saw a rise in ‘hate crime’ following Brexit is complete bollocks. I would like to refer readers and especially the followers of ‘Phoney Fiyaz and his Empire of Lies’ to data supplied by Essex Police, who found no genuine increase in real crime following Brexit. See this article from this site about the rapidly discredited ‘post Brexit hate crime wave’ https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2017/02/20/now-this-bit-of-information-will-hopefully-be-highly-embarrassing-for-tell-mama/

9. Such appeals to Islamophobia were not isolated to the EU referendum. Zac Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign came in for criticism, suggesting that Sadiq Khan had links with extremists, suggesting that he has ‘legitimised’ extremist views 13 while David Cameron suggested that he supported extremism because he stood with an Imam that members of the Conservative party incorrectly labeled as an extremist. 14 On May 6, 2016, we published an article condemning the negative campaign against Sadiq Khan, adding that: ‘We also welcome the new Mayor of London and hope that he unites Londoners rather than dividing them’. 15 Moreover, following Khan’s election, we called on the Conservative Party to hold its own inquiry into the Islamophobia present within the mayoral election campaign. 16

Again, in an unfortunate turn of events for Tell Mama, and yet more indication that their evidence to Parliament was in whole or in part false, it turns out that Sadiq ‘Saracen’ Khan did indeed have familial extremist connections, such as those which have been outlined by this Evening Standard article http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/exposed-sadiq-khans-family-links-to-extremist-organisation-a3179066.html

10. It should be noted that in no way are we inferring that Leave supporters were, on the whole, xenophobic or anti-Muslim and such a claim would be wholly untrue and inaccurate. What is clear though, is that specific campaigning groups and individuals used fear to try and play into the insecurities of some people in communities around migration and around groups of people that they probably rarely engaged with. Anti-Muslim hate in schools and educational institutions

Erm, haven’t you just spent the last two or more paragraphs whining about how ‘Islamophobia’ was a significant part of the Leave campaign? I note well that Tell Mama seem to be angling for their own definition of ‘Islamophobia’ to be taught in schools and for children to be filled with Tell Mama friendly propaganda. As I said earlier, any ‘hate’ that is aimed at Islam is more often than not hatred that the followers of Islam have brought upon themselves either by their own actions, or by not doing nearly enough to root out their own nutcases or reform their own faith.

11. The committee requested that we provide further evidence on anti-Muslim incidents in educational institutions. At Tell MAMA, we record incidents that occur at educational institutions, which includes primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities. We then disaggregate victims of incidents at educational institutions by age to identify incidents that happen at schools and colleges that affect individuals younger than 18 years of age. We can provide verified data for 2015 but are not able to provide verified data for 2016 as our audit is ongoing. Consequently, we stress that the numbers we provide for 2016 are provisional and subject to change.

Can Tell Mama provide properly verifiable data on anything? I doubt it. Personally I wouldn’t trust Tell Mama to tell me if it was raining outside or not.

Leave.eu Facebook. URL:

https://www.facebook.com/leaveeuofficial/photos/a.805855112846065.1073741829.794492093982367/954393177992257/?type=3&theater

11 Dathan, M. (2016). ‘Brexit group condemned for warning of ‘Orlando-style atrocity’ and ‘free movement of Kalashnikovs’ if

Britain stays in the EU’. Daily Mail. URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3638997/Brexit-campaign-condemned-warning-Orlando-style-atrocity-free-movement-Kalashnikovs-Britain-stays-EU.html

12 BBC News (2016). ‘Race and religious hate crimes rose 41% after EU vote’. BBC News Online. URL:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37640982

13 Goldsmith, Z. (2016). ‘On Thursday, are we really going to hand the world’s greatest city to a Labour party that thinks terrorists is its friends?’ MailOnline. URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3567537/On-Thursday-really-going-hand-world-s-greatest-city-Labour-party-thinks-terrorists-friends-passionate-plea-ZAC-GOLDSMITH-four-days-Mayoral-election.html

14 Cooper, C and C Mortimer. (2016). ‘Suliman Gani: David Cameron apologises to imam for Isis link as he faces pressure over Khan claims’. The Independent. URL: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/suliman-gani-michael-fallon-forced-apologise-imam-isis-link-david-cameron-pressure-sadiq-khan-claims-a7024656.html

15 Tell MAMA. (2016). ‘Never again should such a torrid campaign be run for the Mayor of London’. Tell MAMA. URL:

http://tellmamauk.org/never-torrid-campaign-run-mayor-london/

16 Tell MAMA. (2016). ‘Labour did the right thing on antisemitism, now the Conservatives must on Islamophobia’. Tell MAMA.

URL: http://tellmamauk.org/labour-right-thing-antisemitism-now-conservatives-must-islamophobia/

12. We recorded 46 anti-Muslim incidents in educational institutions in 2015. Of these incidents, 4 incidents involved vandalism and desecration of property (mostly at universities) and two incidents of the dissemination of anti-Muslim literature. There were 23 incidents of abusive behaviour and 13 incidents of assault, which we will provide more detail on below. There were also 4 incidents of discrimination verified in 2015. Our provisional analysis for 2016 shows that there were over 30 reports of incidents at educational institutions, which we expect to increase slightly as we complete our annual review of data. There were three reports of discrimination in this period, two of which involved referrals under the Prevent duty. As with 2015, the majority of incidents involve abusive behaviour and assaults.

Note well that ‘abusive behaviour’ and ‘assaults’ are not clarified or detailed in any meaningful way. This is the normal Tell Mama modus operandi which is to allege something but not back it up in any way that is checkable by independent readers. One thing that jumps out at me about these claims of ‘assaults’ and ‘abusive behaviour’ is that 46 is a relatively low number when compared to the number of children and young people in education and that these figures seem to be going down.

13. In 2015, we supported a victim of a serious, violent threat in a boarding school that was anti- Muslim in nature. The victim faced a series of bullying incidents leading to a threat of violence and being called a ‘terrorist’. As the perpetrating pupil made this threat of violence, a member of school staff did not de-escalate the situation. Unfortunately, the victim responded to this attack with racist language. Consequently, both pupils were punished but the Islamophobic bullying continued. The school did little to mitigate the abuse that the boy was receiving to the point that he was traumatised and his behaviour deteriorated, leading to his expulsion. The school, if it had clearer safeguarding guidelines on addressing racist and Islamophobic bullying, could have de- escalated and mitigated the abuse that this victim faced and prevented the problems that ultimately led to his expulsion.

14. In another case, a young man was slapped by a woman at his college and called ‘ISIS’ and ‘terrorist’ by other boys nearby. The victim walked away as the other boys that called him names followed and spat on him, alleging that he sexually assaulted girls in the college (an allegation that was proven false by police). The victim of this attack was then suspended along with some of the perpetrators, though the one that spat in his face was not reprimanded. According to the victim, the school had not sanctioned the perpetrators and it appears that they have not faced the same level of punishment. The victim decided not to return to the college in order to avoid facing future attacks, causing a serious disruption to his education.

15. These two cases above are illustrative of a pattern in which schools have punished victims and perpetrators have not faced equal punishment. While this is up to the discretion of schools, we find that the failure of these schools to de-escalate such situations and articulate clear disciplinary procedures for such incidents has a significant negative effect on the education of victims.

Two cases? Is that all you can find to illustrate a problem which Tell Mama say are ‘illustrative of pattern of ‘Islamophobia in schools’. Methinks this is more exaggeration from Tell Mama.

In light of these patterns, we recommend that the Department for Education undertake a review of racism, bullying, and Islamophobia in schools and provide clearer guidelines for schools on how address anti-Muslim incidents with more respect to victims. In response to these concerns, we have run various training sessions in schools, but want to take this further, and national in scope.

I’d no more want Fiyaz Mughal and his crew teaching my child about Islamophobia than I’d want to see the shade of Myra Hindley teaching him in a ‘child development’ class. Again we see how Tell Mama want their definition and conception of ‘Islamophobia’ to be the one that is treated as a definition that cannot be questioned and they want to be able to propagandise our children. On this they should definitely be told to sod right off.

Anti-Muslim hate on Twitter

16. There are a number of problems that social media companies have not effectively addressed on their platforms. We provide some details of our experience addressing anti-Muslim accounts and ideologues on the Twitter platform below.

17. There are significant tensions with how to regulate such a space without infringing on the ability of Twitter to operate freely and also without infringing on the freedom of its users.

Here the Tell Mama group hit on a major problem with the whole concept of ‘hate speech’ and that is what is ‘hate speech’ for some, may be free speech for others. To some people, the statement ‘I don’t like Islam very much’ is a statement of fact, or a voicing of a legitimate opinion but to others that same statement may be seen as ‘offensive’. I’ve no doubt whatsoever that Tell Mama would dearly love its staff and activists to be in charge of the censor’s blue pencil when it comes to social media, this is a good reason why Tell Mama should not be given their hearts’ desire on this.

We believe that Twitter can review its policies and consider how it might mitigate the externalities of its platform by investing directly in communities.

To translate that phrase: ‘Give us some money’

This might be an area of fruitful collaboration between civil society and Twitter and is an area where Facebook has provided some useful preliminary examples.

Oh you mean naked censorship. Well, why not say so, rather than blather on with guff about ‘collaboration between civil society and Twitter’

18. In 2015, 207 Twitter users were reported to Tell MAMA for anti-Muslim activity, crimes, and incidents. The ideology expressed by these Twitter users is broadly consistent and related to prominent news stories. We frequently encounter highly misogynistic language and calls for action to be taken against Muslims. These opinions broadly sit within the ideological frameworks expected from right-wing extremists. Of those 207 users that were reported to us, we can confirm that 38 accounts were taken down and 13 instances of anti-Muslim content were removed. These numbers may have increased slightly as our last review of these numbers were in 2015 and we appreciate that Twitter is now taking more serious steps to counter this form of hate on its platform.

Another misleading figure I’m afraid. Twitter has, even though it is losing users and losing money due to going down the social justice warrior censorship path, still got millions of users. If Tell Mama can only find 207 to highlight, then we need to ask ‘just how big is this alleged problem really?’ From where I’m sitting, 207 individuals giving out opinions that Tell Mama find troublesome doesn’t really amount to what our American cousins refer to as a ‘hill of beans’. Note well how Tell Mama continue to dishonestly conflate people saying unpleasant but possibly true things about Islam with actual threats of violence.

19. While over half of the perpetrators we record on social media platforms have demonstrable links to right-wing extremism verified by our caseworkers, much of the ideology and language used by these perpetrators demonstrates the mainstreaming of far-right ideologies. In further research, we found a direct link between right-wing discourse and these perpetrators online. In our 2015 annual report, we demonstrate that right-wing extremist echo chambers have a major influence on Twitter users that were reported to us in 2015. Many of them are influenced by the so-called ‘alt-right’ in the United States for whom Donald Trump has become somewhat of a champion. They were energised by his rhetoric as early as late 2015 and along with Nigel Farage; he was one of the most popular accounts followed by the Twitter users reported to us.

Guilt by association is a very shaky piece of ground to put yourself on. There are people who follow my account who I don’t follow myself, since I don’t agree with what they say but they are perfectly at liberty to follow me; that doesn’t mean that I agree with these followers. The same applies to Mr Farage. He has no real control over who follows him and it’s disgraceful for Tell Mama to dishonestly smear Mr Farage with the ‘far right’ tag merely because some individuals who could be described as ‘far right’ follow him.

However, we are more concerned about the partisan nature of news sites, such as Breitbart London and ideologues such as Katie Hopkins. In addition, what appears to be professional anti-Muslim trolls, such as @TRobinsonNewEra (Tommy Robinson, former leader of the EDL) and @DowHeater (who we discuss in more detail blow) as key influencers in this network. One of the most important nodes in the network, @Bad_Sweary_Frog, promoted the highly offensive ‘Pakemon’ campaign that led to an arrest in late 2016.

Note how Tell Mama seem to have little problem with partisan news sites and publications of the Left, such as the Guardian and the BBC. This should tell readers that Tell Mama are not interested in balance and honesty per se, but are far more interested in shutting down opinions that they disagree with. I’d also like to say that Tell Mama are sailing quite close to breaching the rules on Sub Judice here by mentioning a case that is still in progress and naming the account allegedly tied to this alleged ‘offence’.

20. The DowHeater Twitter account has for many years, in its various iterations, acted as a lightning rod for nodes of anti-Muslim ideologues and more extreme-right social media accounts. Our data reveals multiple references to this Twitter user since 2013. Throughout 2014, the individual(s) behind DowHeater had, on multiple occasions, manipulated screenshots of press releases from police forces and news agencies to blame Muslims for crimes. Perhaps the most egregious example of this behaviour concerns the doctoring of a Bedfordshire Police press release about an assault on a pregnant woman in Luton. The original press release made no reference to the ethnicity of the suspects. This was only revealed in the local Luton press. DowHeater, however, crudely inserted the sentence “the attackers who were all Asian (MUSLIMS) men and in their late

teens”. This behaviour typifies those within the echo chamber who promote and boost the falsehoods highlighted above. 17 Accounts like DowHeater were creating and sharing fake news before it grew to global prominence in 2016. In 2015, a new iteration of DowHeater emerged under the @Death2RapeGangs handle. The account, however, did not waver in their obsession in proving that Islam is a religion which encourages rape and violence.

21. Accounts like DowHeater have benefited from the support of more popular accounts retweeting their content or encouraging supporters to follow accounts. Tommy Robinson, the founder, and ex-leader of the English Defence League (EDL) has, for example, engaged with various DowHeater accounts in recent years. Thanks, in part to the insular nature of these clandestine ideological networks, individuals can sometimes rebuild their followings when previous accounts are shut down. For example, on 29 November 2016, DowHeater returned under the handle

@DowHeater4. A day later, Tommy Robinson tweeted: “One of the best follows on twitter

@DowHeater4 give her a follow, they keep shutting her account”. 18 This was retweeted 99 times.

Within 48 hours or so, DowHeater had regained more than 1,000 Twitter followers. This account had also tweeted 1,115 tweets in just three days. That equates to roughly 370 tweets per day. 19

During this period, the user engaged in a coordinated and malicious campaign to defund Tell MAMA by encouraging individuals in their networks to write to their MPs to express their ‘dissatisfaction’ with the project. Our staff had to put together multiple dossiers for Twitter to act on the litany of anti-Muslim hatred from the @DowHeater4 account. Statements like “We’re racists for tweeting abt brown skinned muslims raping & prostituting white english schoolgirls, they’re NOT racist for tho ffs” may not fall foul of the law but exemplify the non-violent extremist hate speech which permeates these online spaces. 20 DowHeater created its eighth account on

December 29, 2016. A Google cache captured before its suspension on January 5, 2017, reveals that DowHeater (DowHeater6) made 1,211 tweets in 8 days. That’s roughly 151 tweets per day.

As with previous iterations, @DowHeater6 had 951 followers and followed 921 accounts. 21 `

Tell MAMA. (2014). ‘The Central Conduits of Anti-Muslim Bigotry and Online Hate’, Tell MAMA. URL:

http://tellmamauk.org/central-conduits-anti-muslim-bigotry-online-hate/

18 This Tweet is available at the following URL: https://twitter.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/803946186671583232

19 This figure is based on internal Tell MAMA research based on our monitoring of this account.

20 We have archived this Tweet at the following URL: http://archive.is/NS2eT

I must say I’ve seen some dishonest shit from the mouths and pens of Tell Mama but this really takes the biscuit. Anyone who has followed or read the various Dow Heater accounts, knows that she only ever told the truth about Islam. She sourced stuff as accurately as she could and was never, as far as I could discern, identifiably racist in any way. As for calling out the media for using the word ‘Asian’ in connection with attack on a woman, when the majority of the ‘Asians’ in the town where the attack happened are Muslim, then that’s not racist, that’s calling for media accuracy and honesty. Sadly ‘accuracy’ and ‘honesty’ are two morals that Tell Mama have a long record of being estranged from. As regards the figures about the number of tweets, then as they come from Tell Mama’s own internal research, I’d take these figures with a pinch, or even a shovel-full of salt.

22. A key node within the Twitter network of anti-Muslim ideologues and far-right extremists is @Fahrenheit211 – a prolific blogger and Twitter user keen to damage Tell MAMA’s reputation.

Firstly let me say how delighted I am with the free advertising. However, the allegation that I am ‘far right’ is both libellous and a gross misjudgement. Anyone who reads the output of this blog knows that I have been consistently opposed to attacks on people on the grounds of their race, but ideologies should be fair game for criticism. As for wishing to damage Tell Mama’s reputation, I think they damage their own reputation far more than I can, every time they publish dishonest ‘facts’ or make statements that can be shown to be false or biased. Personally I think that exploiting a mentally ill transsexual convert to Islam in order to push their ‘Islamophobia’ stuff at a CPS and Police meeting shows Tell Mama in a far worse light than many of Tell Mama’s critics, of whom I am but one, could hope to do. See https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2015/11/29/sad-bad-dangerous-to-know-and-utterly-without-any-credibility-whatsoever-more-information-comes-to-light-about-tell-mamas-latest-star-witness/

Since 2013, the individual behind his blog has published more than 140 articles related to our project.

Consider this article to be number one hundred and forty one, no doubt 142, 143 and others will be along soon.

22 On November 20, 2016, Fahrenheit211 promoted the racist ‘Pakemon’ campaign.

Yes, the Fahrenheit211 blog promoted this campaign but it isn’t ‘racist’, it’s attacking Islam as an ideology. For those who do not know, the ‘Pakemon’ campaign showed a variety of Muslims of different races thereby nullifying to some extent the accusation of ‘racism’. The piece also contained contributions from a number of people, including some that criticised white people who colluded with Islamic groups, see this post https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2016/11/20/have-you-played-pakemon-yet-catch-and-deport-them-all/

23 One such sticker, among a litany of highly offensive and criminal content,

‘Offensive’ is subjective and ‘criminal content’ well, that case hasn’t yet been tested properly in a court of law has it, Fiyaz?

uses the term ‘Taqiyyatron’, directed at the Founder of Tell MAMA, Fiyaz Mughal OBE.

Here’s the image that has got Fiyaz Mughal OBE’s ( Operator of a Bullshit Emporium ?) knickers in a twist.

We must stress to the HASC that the term ‘Taqiyya’ is popularized in anti-Muslim circles and infers that Muslims are ‘inherent liars’ and therefore untrustworthy.

Is there any greater lie than the phrase ‘Islam is a religion of peace’? That’s right, up there with the world’s greatest lies such as ‘Yes I do love you’, ‘the cheque’s in the post’ and ‘of course I’m on the Pill’.

It is a specific anti-Muslim trope that is also referred to in the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service’s) Handbook for Prosecutors.

It should be noted at this stage that the CPS have made an attempt in the past to convict someone of using the phrase ‘Taqiyya’ and they lost and the defendant was found not guilty at Magistrates Court. The case in question referred to one Tim Burton of the Liberty GB political party who referred to Fiyaz Mughal as ‘a Mendacious Grievance Mongering Taqiyya artist’. Mughal whined to the police about this description and Mr Burton was arrested and charge with racial or religious harassment. At the trial in Birmingham, expert witnesses showed that the concept of taqiyya or lying for Islam did indeed exist and the result of the case was that Mr Burton was declared not guilty. So far, to my knowledge, Fiyaz Mughal or Tell Mama or other Mughal founded front groups have lost cases in the magistrates court, the civil libel courts and lost a case brought before the old Press Complaints Commission. Hardly a stellar record to base legal statements on is it?

Here’s a story from this blog about the Birmingham Taqiyya trial. https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2014/04/09/here-are-yesterdays-scores-from-birmingham-british-patriots-1-mendacious-grievance-mongering-taqiyya-artist-0/ It should be noted that the effect of Fiyaz Mughal bringing his case against Mr Burton was not to shut Mr Burton up, but indeed it had the opposite effect and popularised the descriptive phrase given to Mughal ‘mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya artist’. Obviously Fiyaz Mughal and his crew have not heard of the phrase ‘The Streisand Effect’.

23. We have raised our concerns about the abusive tweets, harassment and general anti-Muslim tweets from the @Fahrenheit211 account, but had little success having the user banned from the Twitter platform.

Maybe it’s only Tell Mama and their supporters who consider that I’m doing anything wrong?

It remains our concern that an individual who has no problem using the term ‘Muzzie’ 24 , ‘Paedo prophet’ 25 , or ‘Muslim scum’ 26 has continued to promote messages on Twitter

It’s interesting to note that they pick out these statements that, if I recall correctly, I made following various egregious examples of Islamic terror or crime, yet they fail to highlight other statements such as describing Islamic extremists and rapists as ‘Bearded Savages’ or the description of Pakistan as ‘the turd that will not flush’. Oh and for the record the Islamic ‘prophet’ Mohammed was indeed what we would call today a paedophile, Islamic literature itself describes Mohammed as consummating his ‘marriage’ to Ayesha when she was nine years old. If Muslims were not told to emulate their ‘prophet’, then this child marriage story could be safely classified as a historical curio but because of the command to emulate Mo, then this causes problems for societies that have such things as ages of consent for sexual activity. A culture that accepts child sex ,when it meets a society that abhors such things, is a culture clash of massive proportions.

which are antithetical to our shared values.

I’ve no wish to share any ‘values’ with Tell Mama. Mostly because I do my level best to be honest and factual which is not something that Tell Mama can be accused of being.

To date, Twitter has taken no action to remove this account and Twitter corporate responses on this account are slow, when in fact, what is being demonstrated is far right extremism and the development of a far right extremist network.

I’d be interested to see how a middle aged Jewish man such as I am, who’s formerly of the political Left and with relatively liberal views on matters of sex, who supports equity feminism and religious freedom, can conceivably and honestly be described as ‘far right’? This is the usual ‘smear your opponents’ tactic used by Tell Mama. It’s notable that very rarely do they engage with critics, even when the criticism is justified or is given in polite terms, what they do is block people on social media and threaten people with arrest if they continue their criticisms, especially private criticism given to them by non-public communications methods. This is hardly the sort of behaviour that we should expect from an organisation that both wants to be trusted or one that is in receipt of very large amounts of public money. See https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2016/11/27/the-saga-of-the-tell-mama-group-and-taxpayers-cash-a-public-finance-and-probity-scandal-of-monstrous-proportions/

I take the criticisms of this blog’s attacks on Tell Mama as something of a compliment. I take the view that if I’m taking flak from the dangerous clowns of Tell Mama, then I must be right over the target and have them worried to some extent.

24. Other accounts of concern include @DavidJo52951945, a notorious anti-Muslim account that made headlines recently after UKIP’s immigration spokesman, John Bickley, retweeted a cartoon shared from the @DavidJo52951945 account. This image was captioned: “if you want a jihadi for a neighbor, vote Labour”. Mr. Bickley then apologised for the retweet. 27

Again this is very much the ‘non story’. The ‘if you want a jihadi for a neighbour, vote Labour’ image has been doing the rounds without much aggro for years as far as I know and I’m at a loss to know why Tell Mama are picking on this particular social media user? From what I can see, Tell Mama’s only reason for highlighting this account is because they promoted a similar thing to what caused a UKIP immigration spokesperson to, wrongly in my view, apologise. It’s a very tenuous way of linking @DavidJo52951945 with a very minor political scandal.

25. It remains our concern that Twitter’s failure to remove content when reported by our staff undermines public trust in the platform. For example, we reported a horrific account with the username @gasmuslims. It was, however, not removed following our initial report. Only later did Twitter act to suspend the user.

Although I cannot and will not condone the sentiments that appear to be being expressed by a Tweeter with the handle ‘gas Muslims’, this doesn’t seem to have been an account with any large level of following. In any case I can’t find any reference on Twitter for this account existing after December 2015 in which case it’s hardly relevant to evidence given to Parliament by Tell Mama in 2017. It’s a dead idiot account, of which there are many, and not just in the political and religious fields, it has little or no relevance to what is going on today.

26. In January 2016, we reported the Twitter user @jamesoxby to the platform for removal. On two occasions, this individual shared a horrifically racist and pornographic cartoon of a white woman (or girl) being raped by Asian men on the figurative ‘altar of multiculturalism’. A reverse image search confirms that this meme is popular among far-right Twitter networks and extremist anti-Muslim hate websites. The abject failure to remove such an overt example of racist propaganda is unacceptable.

I think that Mughal and co will find that the meme of Muslim men raping non-Muslim girls and young women isn’t merely an ‘Islamophobic’ or ‘racist’ image but a horrific statement of real life for non-Muslim women and girls in places such as Rotherham, Cairo, Rochdale, Oxford,Telford, Cologne etc etc. Like it or not, and Tell Mama will not; there is indeed a problem with Muslim men behaving in a sexually predatory manner because of cultural attitudes to the rights and position of women and of non-Muslim women in particular. Again, as with the highly selective Tweets taken from the Farhenheit211 and @DavidJo52951945 accounts, we see particular stuff highlighted but other stuff ignored. Tell Mama are selecting stuff that backs their own narrative but ignoring stuff that challenges that narrative.

27. We have also continued to make the case that given the drain on national and civil society resources, companies like Twitter – which are for-profit corporate companies, must invest into communities and in particular, in the battle for hearts and minds against hatred, intolerance, and prejudice.

Bollocks to that. The last thing any free nation needs is more censorship. Notice again how the phrase ‘invest in communities’ which translates into ‘give us or our pals some money’ pops up. Also notice the fact-light assertion that people expressing their opinions on social media is a ‘drain on civil society’, what utter guff.

We propose that Twitter set aside an actual fund for civil society groups who can apply to undertake project related work and help run local and national grassroots work programmes on tackling hatred and intolerance.

Now I wonder who these groups could be? Would they include Tell Mama themselves or maybe the troubling, left wing, pro-migration, pro-Islam group Citizens UK, who have form for promoting censorship in the name of ‘diversity’ and ‘stopping hatred’ by bullying companies into dropping advertising with publications that ‘offend’ Citizens UK? I bet it would.

28. We thank Twitter for their support for organisations in providing small campaign credits though these do nothing for infrastructural support and grassroots activities and actually bear no cost to Twitter. As part of their public relations strategy existing credits are small in nature and dispersed to various groups, yet the credit support is not substantive enough to tackle the spikes and peaks that we see on anti-Muslim hatred after major national and international incidents. We would, therefore, ask that the HASC press Twitter to set up an actual fund and this may be one which pools resources from other social media companies. An independent committee of civil society activists with representatives from social media companies can oversee applications per quarter and disburse funds to the most relevant projects which meet previously set criteria.

Again the plea for money to be given to Tell Mama and their leftist pro-Islam pals. I must say that any ‘civil society activist’ who Tell Mama approved of, would almost definitely not be anyone who believed in freedom of speech. What Tell Mama seem to desire is for there to be censors scrubbing out ‘offensive’ opinion, even though the right to express one’s opinion, even if some may find it ‘offensive’, is the right that that underpins all other rights in an advanced and free society.

We have archived this Tweet at the following URL: http://archive.is/06s5L

This figure is based on the blogger using the keywords ‘‘Tell MAMA’.

23 Tweet available at: https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2016/11/20/have-you-played-pakemon-yet-catch-and-deport-them-all/

24 Tweet available at: https://twitter.com/Fahrenheit211/status/658261593160077312

25 Tweet available at: https://twitter.com/Fahrenheit211/status/771326451530526721

26 Tweet available at: https://twitter.com/Fahrenheit211/status/773974409140994048

27 Elgot, J. (2017). ‘Ukip spokesman apologises for retweet of racially charged slogan’, The Guardian. URL:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/13/ukip-spokesman-apologises-for-retweet-of-racially-charged-slogan

29. Our most recent annual report found clear cross-over points between far-right extremism and anti-Muslim hate incidents and crimes.

An annual report put together by tame activists, using data that has often been supplied by Tell Mama themselves.

We are extremely concerned at the repeated targeting of Muslims online and of the way that extremist far-right groups amplify their messages on social media platforms and their manipulation of search engine results to boost their website rankings.

For ‘targeting’ read ‘criticism’ and for ‘extremist far right groups’ read people with genuine well founded concerns about the culture and theology of Islam and the effect of these on non-Muslim societies. I must say I’ve seen little of the manipulation of search engine rankings by those whom Tell Mama describe as ‘far right’, but what I have seen is far more left oriented social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter censoring counter jihad and conservative comment. An example of this can be found described by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/03/facebook-and-twitter-censor-jihad-watch-block-thousands-from-reading-it

Again, even when Twitter has been provided with detailed maps of accounts that are connected as part of an extremist network, they have failed to act, compared to other forms of extremism.

We believe that there cannot be a separate approach to closing extremist accounts. Where identified with evidence, Twitter must act in a uniform manner.

Whine whine whine. Why don’t Tell Mama just be honest and admit what they want is to shut down comment that they disagree with? Oh I forgot, ‘honesty’ and ‘Tell Mama’ should not go in the same sentence unless the word ‘honesty’ is preceded by the prefix ‘dis-‘.

Intra-Muslim conflict and hate

30. As a non-sectarian support service, we have documented incidents against Ahmadi and Shia communities. This includes vandalism of mosques, verbal abuse, menacing tweets and the distribution of sectarian literature. Examples of anti-Shia incidents include graffiti found on a mosque in Bradford in 2015. 28 On May 10, 2013, a demonstration organised by the proscribed Al-Muhajiroun group morphed into anti-Shia violence and resulted in guilty verdicts for five men. 29

On social media, we’ve received reports of anti-Shia rhetoric which denigrate their beliefs, smearing individuals as ‘kafir’ – a means to term Muslims who do not ascribe to certain interpretations of Islam as ‘unbelievers’. As we’ve seen abroad, this rhetoric can and does have deadly consequences. 30

31. We outlined how the Tell MAMA project monitors, measures and supports individuals targeted for anti-Shia and anti-Ahmadi hatred. The latter is particularly pernicious and both forms of intolerance and hatred have shown themselves to us. Several incidents in 2014 referenced anti-Shia hatred that emerged during the civil war in Syria. Similarly, we noted that anti-Ahmadi cases became more prominent following the murder of Asad Shah in Glasgow. Even though Mr. Shah was not murdered because he was a member of the Ahmadiyya community, it was clear that Ahmadis were targeted after this murder. The perpetrators were other Muslims. Cases reported to Tell MAMA concerned anti-Ahmadi graffiti, signs rejecting Ahmadi presence inside some mosques, and sectarian language. Anti-Ahmadi rhetoric is driven by a belief that members of this community are not Muslim. We are in no position to declare who is a Muslim and who is not, however, if someone experiences hatred or violence and they perceive it as anti-Muslim in nature, we will note their identity and provide the relevant support.

32. A major report published by Faith Matters in October last year put anti-Ahmadiyya rhetoric and violence in its historical and modern contexts – both in the UK and abroad. 31 The report alsodocuments the 29 anti-Ahmadi incidents reported to Tell MAMA in early 2016. 32 Dame Louise Casey’s independent review into integration and opportunity noted that: “Tell MAMA reports that the number of cases of abuse against minority sects, particularly the Ahmadis, has increased over the past five years.” 33 Other incidents reported to our service include calls to boycott Ahmadi-run businesses, sectarian graffiti at the Noor mosque in Crawley which read ‘Qadyani kaffir’. 34 Theterm Qadiani (and other spelling variations) are often used in a pejorative manner. 35

Tell MAMA

Tell MAMA. (2015). ‘Shia Centre Targeted in Bradford in anti-Muslim Hate Incident’. Tell MAMA. http://tellmamauk.org/shia-centre-targeted-in-bradford-in-anti-muslim-hate-incident/

29 Culbertson, A. (2014). ‘Islamic members of anti-Shi’ite terrorist group found guilty for Edgware Road attacks’. Get WestLondon. URL: http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/local-news/islamic-members-anti-shiite-terrorist-group-7091514

30 See entry for ‘kafir’ in Oxford Islamic Studies Online. URL: http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1229

31 Faith Matters. (2016). ‘REPORT LAUNCH: Sectarianism, Extremism & Hate Crime: The Impacts on the AhmadiyyaCommunity’. Faith Matters News. URL: http://faith-matters.org/2016/10/09/report-launch-sectarianism-extremism-hate-crime-the-impacts-on-the-ahmaddiya-community/

32 This figure may be subject to revision in our 2016 Annual Report, due in mid-2017.

33 Casey, L. (2016). The Casey Review: a review into opportunity and integration, p. 141.

34 Tell MAMA. (2016). ‘Crawley Ahmadiyya Mosque Suffers a Hate Crime’. Tell MAMA. URL: http://tellmamauk.org/crawley-ahmaddiya-mosque-suffers-a-hate-crime/

35 Faith Matters, op. cit.

28

7

To be fair, briefly (very briefly) to Tell Mama for a moment, on the subject of intra-Islamic problems they are correct. The Sunni hate the Shia, the Shia hate the Sunni and everyone hates the one genuinely peaceful strand of Islam, the Ahmadiyya. Ahmadiyya mosques are attacked, but they are often attacked by other Muslims who refer to Ahmadiyya as ‘Kaffir’ or unbelievers, an accusation that carries a death sentence in Islamic law. We should not forget that Sunni Muslims murdering Ahmadiyya is not just something that happens in batshit mental case Islamic states such as Pakistan, we should remember that Asad Shah was murdered by another Muslim merely for respecting the customs of the United Kingdom. Yet again Tell Mama have inadvertently revealed to Parliament what many of us know already and that is that Islam is a belief system that is shot through with violence. Islamic cultures and nations are so often places where there is endemic internal intra-Muslim violence, this gives the lie to the phrase that Islam is a ‘religion of peace’.

About the only thing that I could find in Tell Mama’s written evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee that I could reasonably describe, hand on heart, as honest and truthful is the section on intra-Muslim violence and hatred. The rest of the written evidence that they have presented, was at best spin and at worse slander and outright dishonesty.

I, and many others, find that it is disgusting that Tell Mama, a group who have so many questions about their activities and processes that they need to answer but often refuse to answer, is being indulged by the HASC like this. It’s almost as scandalous as the £181k that they have leached out of the taxpayers’ pockets for the current financial year. This money could have been far better spent, just as Parliamentary time could have been better spent, on something more useful than giving a platform to the charlatans and censors of Tell Mama.

There is so much dishonesty and spin in Tell Mama’s evidence to the HASC that maybe the correct way to conclude this article would be to remind Tell Mama that not telling the whole truth to a select committee carries substantial penalties in theory, since it is considered to be perjury, but nobody has been called to the Bar of the House to be admonished for something they have or have not said for a long while. However Tell Mama have punished themselves far more effectively than the House of Commons could, by submitting this easily refutable, laughable pile of crap as ‘evidence’ to a select committee. I await the opinion of the HASC with interest now that they have received this extended whine from the mountebanks of Tell Mama.

 

Link

 

Original pdf document as submitted to the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee

Tell Mama Written Evidence to House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee