Posted on 07/25/2005 1:55:57 PM PDT by WmShirerAdmirer
The Guardian has terminated a reporter's one-year training contract after a blogger revealed the writer was a member of a extremist Islamist political party and had not declared his interest to the newspaper when he wrote for its comment pages after the July 7 attacks.
The Guardian's move - according to the newspaper, taken after reporter Dilpazier Aslam refused to resign from the party, Hizb ut- Tahrir - echoes recent media oustings in America, but is the first time a British journalist has been forced to step down after coming under fire from bloggers - independent web diarists.
Scott Burgess, who runs the Daily Ablution blog, revealed Mr Aslam’s ties to Hizb ut-Tahrir, which operates legally in Britain but is banned in several other countries.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has courted controversy for campaigning for a global Islamic state under sharia law, with its publication The Inevitability of the Clash of Civilisations.
According to a 2003 BBC report, the Hizb ut-Tahrir's website "promotes racism and anti-Semitic hatred, calls suicide bombers martyrs, and urges Muslims to kill Jewish people".
It is described in an internal Home Office briefing note as a "radical, but to date non-violent Islamist group".
The note described the organisation as "an independent political party that is active in many countries across the world. HT's activities centre on intellectual reasoning, logic arguments and political lobbying. The party adheres to the Islamic sharia law in all aspects of its work."
The note adds: "It probably has a few hundred members in the UK. Its ultimate aim is the establishment of an Islamic state (Caliphate), according to HT via non-violent means. It holds anti-semitic, anti-western and homophobic views."
A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain has emphasised that Hizb ut-Tahrir does not speak for the Muslim mainstream.
Mr Aslam contributed to Hizb ut-Tahrir's website, where he wrote: "fight fire with fire, the state of Israel versus the Khilafah State".
Mr Burgess, a British-based American who had applied for the internship post at the Guardian to which Mr Aslam was appointed, established that the reporter "was working for this group as recently as June of last year".
At The Guardian, among the stories he worked on, Mr Aslam had covered the case of the Luton schoolgirl who took legal action for the right to wear her Islamic headscarf to school.
Writing for The Guardian in the wake of the July 7 London bombs, Mr Aslam described himself as "a Yorkshire lad, born and bred" in a comment piece.
He went on to say Britons should not pretend to be shocked at the events of July 7, in which 56 died, including four suicide bombersThis would "be to suggest that the bombings happened through no responsibility of our own," he said.
After the article was published, The Guardian's attention was drawn to a document Hizb ut-Tahrir posted in March 2002, on its British website, Khalifah.com.
It quotes a passage from the Koran ("kill them wherever you find them...") followed by material arguing: "the Jews are a people of slander...a treacherous people... they fabricate lies and twist words from their right places".
In a statement issued following Mr Aslam's dismissal, the Guardian said, "The effect of this juxtaposition appeared to be the incitement [by Hizb ut-Tahrir] of violence against Jews. The piece remained on the website until recently and is still available on other Islamist websites."
According to The Guardian's statement, Mr Aslam told the editor, Alan Rusbridger, that he was unwilling to leave Hizb ut-Tahrir, and "while he personally repudiated anti-semitism, he did not consider the website material to be promoting violence or to be anti-semitic".
Before joining the Guardian, Mr Aslam wrote three pieces for Khalifah.com, and was once billed as its "middle eastern correspondent".
Both the sentiments contained in Mr Aslam's Guardian column and the paper's failure to disclose Mr Aslam’s affiliation sparked criticism from bloggers.
"They're getting extremists to write about other extremists," said the chrenkoff site.
The eursoc.com website said: "UK bloggers may have hit on a home-grown scandal."
Bloggers also criticised the BBC website for soliciting a comment from Dr Imran Waheed, the media spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, on the London bombing.
"The British government needs to re-examine its policy of interference in the Muslim world, which started well before the Iraq war," he said.
"The contradiction of espousing democratic values at home while supporting dictatorships throughout the Muslim world sits uncomfortably with many Muslims living Britain."
In April, George Galloway alleged that a group organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir had sought to disrupt his campaigning in London ahead of the general election. The mob described the MP as a "false prophet".
I'm suprised that the Guardian had a problem with this.
The note adds: "It probably has a few hundred members in the UK. Its ultimate aim is the establishment of an Islamic state (Caliphate), according to HT via non-violent means. It holds anti-semitic, anti-western and homophobic views."
Oh, never mind. I see the problem now.
Boy you absolutely nailed it! (post 2)
Will the Guardian change its habits because it got caught? I think they will be as dense as CBS (which did not learn from the Dan Rather disaster) and as dense as CNN (which did not learn from the Eason Jordan disaster) or the NY Times (which did not learn from the Jayson Blair disaster).
I'd be pleased if the Guardian DID learn and change. But that's not the way to bet. LOL.
Congressman Billybob
The writer will probably get hired on by the N.Y.Times.
Mr Aslam contributed to Hizb ut-Tahrir's website, where he wrote: "fight fire with fire, the state of Israel versus the Khilafah State".
Khilafah—isn't that some sort of sausage? Or maybe a back-scrubber?
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