The détente following the July bombings between the office of the Mayor of London and his arch enemy, the Evening Standard, was bound to be shortlived.

After the Standard wrongly accused a Muslim bookshop-owner of peddling hatred, Ken’s team used the September issue of The Londoner freesheet to take the Standard to ask, demanding an apology and an article to set the matter straight.

Staff at the Dar Al Taqwa bookshop, near Baker Street, have received threatening and abusive phone calls ever since the Standard published its address and phone number in its “Terror and hatred for sale in central London” article on 28 July.

Dar Al Taqwa, owned by Samir El-Attar, has sold books on the Qur’an, Arabic and travel to Londoners for more than 20 years, but none of the extremist books or videos pictured next to a photo of the shop has ever been sold on the premises. Mr El-Attar even points out that one of the items pictured was actually a DVD of an anti-terrorism lecture by Dr Zakir Naik.

The Standard has so far refused to run an apology, but it did print a clarification that “the videos and books pictured with the article” had never been on sale at Dar Al Taqwa.

Private Eye, 30 September 2005

(For earlier coverage see here, here and here.)

Recent attacks on Ahmad Thomson in the Tory press (see for example here) are perhaps not unconnected with the fact that he has represented Dar Al Taqwa in its dispute with the Standard (see here).

The Muslim Council of Britain says it is to write to the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit about an edition of the current affairs programme Panorama. The announcement came after the editor of Panorama rejected an MCB objection that the programme was “deeply unfair”.

Panorama had quoted one of its founders as saying the body was “in denial” about extreme views among its members. The MCB said it was at the “forefront” of criticising extremism and it was “not satisfied” with the response. In its original complaint, the MCB claimed editors “deliberately garbled” interviews with Muslims in the programme.

BBC News, 30 September 2005 

Commenting on the Glees report into extremist groups operating on university campuses, When Students Turn to Terror, NUS National President Kat Fletcher and NUS Black Students’ Officer Pav Akhtar said:

“The paper offers nothing to the serious debate about how to address terrorism in society.

“No evidence is presented to support the view that campus life contributes to students becoming involved in terrorism, other than that some individuals who have been, or are alleged to have been, involved in terrorist activity also attended a UK college at some point.

“The report proposes imposing quotas on the number of ethnic minority students attending any individual university; abolishing the ‘clearing’ system that allows students to find an alternative university if they have not achieved the grades needed for their first choice; forcing all student societies to include dons on their committees; and restricting academic discussion on certain topics.

“NUS fears that the report’s unsubstantiated claims have the potential to endanger Muslim students by inflaming a climate of racism, fear and hostility, and place a cloud over perfectly legitimate student Islamic societies.

“NUS is calling on its members to work together to engage all students and defend the rights of faith and cultural groups to self-organise as societies. Unions are encouraged to support minority student groups including the Islamic society, against any backlash or exclusion. We encourage student officers to meet with their Black and minority ethnic groups on campus at the beginning of term to ensure access to welfare and support provisions is clear and that students report any incidents of hate crime.”

Posted on educationet, 28 September 2005