I’ve been pleased to receive this guest submission from Jacob on the ongoing story of a group of suspected doxers and online harassers whose senior level member given a ‘Community Upstander’ award from a group she had been closely associated with in the past. The ‘No2H8Crime’ awards were founded by two luminaries from the Tell Mama ‘anti-Islamophobia’ group, Fiyaz Mughal, the founder and former director of Tell Mama and Iman Atta the current director of Tell Mama. This blog, as Mr Mughal noted in his evidence to the court in the trial of Mr Tim Burton on ‘hate speech’ charges a few years back, has published a number of articles critical of the activities of the Tell Mama organisation. I have been critical both of the probity of the organisation with regards to how they classify ‘Islamophobic’ attacks, their censoriousness when it comes to the matter of free speech regarding Islam and lack of value for money Tell Mama gives to the taxpayer. I have often pointed out that Tell Mama along with other projects in which Mr Mughal has been involved in are a waste of public money.
This story by Jacob concerns a probity issue in connection with the No2H8Crime Awards as an award was once given to a woman called Roanna Carleton-Taylor from the Resisting Hate organisation. She was given this award by an organisation connected to Mr Mughal despite there being a lot of allegations swimming around that RH were doxing and harassing people. It is also a probity issue because the award was given to a woman by an organisation founded by Mr Mughal who was an associate of Mr Mughal in the past. This strikes me as being a clear case of conflict of interest. Conflict of interest is bad enough but when it involves those who are running groups that are in receipt of public money then it becomes an even greater concern.
Jacob has apparently done some good grunt journalism with this piece. He has gone out and contacted many of the groups that have associated themselves with the No2H8Crime Awards and appraised them on the situation with regards an award that was given to someone who maybe shouldn’t have got one. There are signs that this extra information regarding the No2H8Crime Awards and the nature of their appraisal of candidates for awards are reassessing their position with regards to the No2H8Crime Awards and are reviewing procedures regarding which groups and individuals they associate with.
UK anti-hate organization disavows Fiyaz Mughal’s No2H8Crime awards – By Jacob
It has been noted before how an organization that Fiyaz Mughal helped set up (No2H8Crime) nominated an internet troll who is known for doing nothing more than attempting to destroy lives by trolling online with racists and homophobes. https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/01/resisting-hate%e2%80%a8-or-reviving-it These organizations, that are funded with taxpayers’ money, would on the surface appear to have noble reasons for existing. When that first article appeared about TellMama and No2H8Crime, it is noted that the author approached Tell Mama as well as all other anti-race, anti-bullying and anti-hate charities/orgs who partner with, support or endorse No2H8Crime. These partners are 32 in number https://no2h8crimeawards.org/partners/ They include the London Mayor’s office, as well as British Transport police, and West Mercia and Warwickshire police. The Daily Mirror promote them, and, interestingly, Facebook have now also partnered with No2H8Crime within the past few days. No response was received from any of the people contacted at that time, and no assurances that they would be investigating the claims and withdrawing support from anyone who is nominating or recognizing a person who spreads hatred and racism online. As a result, another year passed and more nominations went forward, and more awards were handed out.
In a bid to finally get an answer from these agencies, I approached them myself, telephoning them to make sure I had gotten their email addresses correct, and alerting them to the fact that I was writing a follow-up piece on them. I was assured that I would be sending the emails to the correct addresses, and assured by them that they would have a read over my email and give me a response. That’s two emails and a phone call that have now been made to these anti-racistm, anti-Islamophobia, anti-bullying, etc. organizations, as well as a multitude of tweets that have gone unanswered. A week has passed and I have received one reply from a group called https://www.stophateuk.org/, and I would like to commend them for assuring me that they do not stand in support of “Trolling, Doxing, Cyberbullying, etc.” They go on to say that they have “previously been involved in, supported and publicized the generation of material, such as the work of ‘Get the Trolls Out’ (http://stoppinghate.getthetrollsout.org/) specifically in order to encourage and support responsible and non-harmful ‘counter-speech’ activity.” I suspect this was initially geared towards leftist readers in a bid to assist them in shutting down the imaginary ‘far-right’ boogeymen, but they agree that the rules apply even to left-wing, liberal trolls who are also unable to debate without resorting to personal attacks on one’s character, family and children.
Stop Hate UK are having their good name, and their ethos, dragged through the mud by their partnership with the TellMama, Fiyaz Mughal initiated awards that are known by the name of No2H8Crime. Stop Hate UK confirmed that “our status as ‘partners’ is therefore largely in support of the underlying principal of encouraging and acknowledging ‘Active Citizenship’…Nevertheless, we would also assert that any such ‘Active Citizenship’ does require an obligation to conduct activities responsibly, and therefore precludes the harmful, negative, and, in their more extreme forms, potentially criminal activities and behaviours.” It’s disturbing to me that people like Fiyaz Mughal and his affiliated charities can get away with raising the public profile of people who do nothing more than sow division and spread hatred, but I am assured by Stop Hate UK informing me that their CEO is now aware of how No2H8Crime operate, and by the fact that they will review their association with them, and discuss how best to go forward from now on. They have agreed that “there is a need for closer scrutiny and research in relation to potential nominees for future awards, in order to avoid any perception that Stop Hate UK, or indeed any of the award supporters, would condone the behaviours” that I have outlined and alerted them to. If only all of the other partners and sponsors felt the same way.
Too often these organizations that exist to fight racism and hatred, are guilty of turning a blind eye when a leftist uses racism or homophobia as a tool to bully others they disagree with. In this regard, these organizations are every bit as guilty of encouraging the bullying of others even while they profess to condemn such behaviour. Stonewall UK gave no reply when alerted to the homophobic and transphobic abuse these trolls were meting out to other people on social media. They did not respond to emails sent to them by different journalists, and they did not come out to condemn the language and behaviour online, even while one of their staff was engaging in an encouragingly supportive conversation with the trolls. Likewise, BLM UK didn’t utter a word when they were shown the racist tweets that were being put out by friends of No2H8Crime’s nominee. They didn’t bat an eyelid at the use of the N word being employed and weaponized because it was being directed at a perceived right-wing person. To state the obvious, going forward with awards for ‘Active Citizenship’ requires that nominees’ social media profiles are vetted. It’s a simple task. Not screening a person, when they have been put forward for an award, is lazy, wreckless, and irresponsible. It leads, as we see here, to an organization’s own public image being discredited. It also emboldens these trolls, and allows them to continue in their bullying ways, imbued with an even higher sense of righteousness in their crusade to shut down any opinion they disagree with.
