For legal reasons I try not to comment too deeply on sub judice cases that are still before or about to go before the courts. However there are some cases where an exception could and sometimes should be made, either because of the nature of the case or because it is high profile. One such case is the ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ furore that occurred earlier this year.
You may recall that a series of letters were sent earlier this year to various Muslims. These poison pen letters were laid out in the form of a spoof game that gave varying levels of points for different violent or non violent actions against Muslims in Britain. In that incident the mendacious grievance mongering Islamic taqiyya artists of Tell Mama were very much to the fore in publicising these letters and their involvement in the publicity made many people suspicious as to what was going on. At the time I said that this letter was probably sent out by some lone nutter, Muslims trying to play the ‘victim’ card or was a hoax.
There are press reports stating that a man was arrested in Lincolnshire on Tuesday for offences allegedly in connection to the ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letters and it is worth examining the reports and engaging in a little speculation even though these reports are from a relatively early stage of the investigation. According to The Lincolnite, a local news source for the Lincolnshire area, a 35 year old man was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, sending a hoax noxious substance. At the time of writing (Thurs morning) there has been no name given for the suspect and neither has he been charged, although the various prevention of terrorism acts do permit holding suspects for seven days or more before charging.
There is no indication at this stage whether this man was the originator of the letters or was merely a copycat and he may even be innocent of any criminal taint. Here’s part of the article in The Lincolnite about this case. As is usual policy for this blog the original quoted text is in italics whereas this blog’s comments are in plain text.
The Lincolnite said:
The arrest of a man in Lincoln yesterday over malicious ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letters was not in response to any immediate threat, police said.
There probably wasn’t any real threat in the first place. Any body serious about inspiring people to attack random Muslims would have done a damn better job of presentation. I’ve seen better presented and more persuasively designed stuff coming from children. As a serious threat the poison pen letters were laughable in the extreme.
Counter terrorism police were supported by Lincolnshire Police in arresting a 35-year-old man from South Lincoln. Offices in the city centre were also raided by officers.
Two search sites but only one arrest. Interesting. Either the police think that this man will cough with the names of a large and organised group of violent Muslim haters if they hold him long enough, or there may be less to this case than meets the eye? It would be interesting to know which offices were raided and to what purposes these offices were being put?
The Lincoln man was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, as well as sending a hoax noxious substance and threatening messages.
If there is a conspiracy here who is it with? This man has had nearly two days in various police station being questioned and has not yet, to my knowledge, coughed up the names of any alleged accomplices. We would swiftly know if that was the case as others would have been arrested by now. Of course I cannot approve or condone of death threats or sending hoax noxious substances, such actions are wrong, but I do wonder if this letter and the associated alleged acts were not produced by some well organised group. This case still has the aroma about it of a lone nutter or duo of nutters at best. Police counterterrorism officers have thrown a lot of resources at this case yet all they have to show for it is one arrest of one man in Lincoln and the police themselves admit that this is not an ongoing threat, something does not seem quite right here.
According to The Lincolnite the man was taken to a police station in West Yorkshire for questioning and it will be interesting to find out what if any are the final charges levelled against him. It will also be interesting to find out the name of this alleged offender is he a random Brit pissed off with Islam, are they some sort of hoaxer or are they doing this in order to stoke the Islamic victimhood narrative? The full court case, if it comes to that, will be worth following.
It should be noted at this point that the story published by The Lincolnite originated from a Huffington Post writer called Rowaida Abdelaziz. She is a veteran social justice warrior and campaigner against ‘Islamophobia’ and promotes Islam in her work. The Lincolnite it needs to be said is regurgitating the work of a propagandist for Islam.
So, based on the information that has come out about this case so far, it’s looking less likely that this arrest is of someone with serious connections to credible violent extremist groups and more likely to be someone who has got pissed off with Islam and has gone over the edge. One would have to be particularly credulous to take any of these ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ letter’s seriously, with the exception of the hoax noxious substance package, these letters should have immediately screamed ‘hoax’ or ‘random fraggle’ the moment they were received. I wonder how much of the UK’s counterterrorism police resources has been spent on the three months that this case has been under investigation? It may have been better to have binned these obviously amateurish attempts at issuing a threat rather than waste police resources that should have been more appropriately spent on doing something about the 23,000 Islamic radicals that are wandering around our towns and cities.
Additional information:
Other pieces from Fahrenheit211 regarding the ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ phenomenon
Something smelt fishy about this case from the start
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2018/03/11/the-muslim-slayer-letters-story-smells-very-very-fishy/
This blog predicted that nothing would happen on the so called ‘Punish a Muslim Day’ and that was correct
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2018/04/03/so-what-will-happen-today/
An open letter to the Tell Mama group chiding them for their enthusiasm for promoting what turned out to be a ‘nothingburger’ and a hoax which has wasted an enormous amount of police and parliamentary time.
Former ‘Communities’ secretary and now Home Secretary was embroiled in a scandal when he claimed that a picture of the letter that he distributed was of the actual letter he received. This was not the case and Mr Javid was caught out being a bit economical with the truth.
