“She was presented by Channel 4 as an authentic – but anonymous – voice of moderate British Islam. And on Christmas Day the veiled woman described only as ‘Khadijah’ was given a national televison platform for propagating her views in an ‘alternative Christmas message’ designed to rival the Queen’s. She told viewers Jack Straw was wrong to criticise the veil, claiming concealing facial features ‘liberated’ women. But the Daily Mail can now unveil ‘Khadijah’ – and reveal that she is in fact Elaine Atkinson, an English convert to Islam who travels the country working for a radical muslim group trying to take political control of Pakistan.”
The “radical Muslim group” is Mihaj-ul-Quran, an organisation associated with a political party – Pakistan Awami Tehrik – that gained precisely 0.7% of the popular vote in the last parliamentary elections in Pakistan and elected just one MP. So clearly it has some way to go before it takes political control of Pakistan.
And although the Daily Mail pours scorn on Khadijah’s “claims of being moderate”, the same paper recently quoted another supporter of Minhaj-ul-Quran as an example of the “moderate Muslims” who the Mail claims are opposed to Tablighi Jamaat building a new mosque in Newham.
The BNP have applauded the Mail for exposing Khadijah Atkinson’s “rejection of her traditional English background, and her determination to embrace radical Islam”. BNP news article, 30 December 2006