Maajid Nawaz has a public statement on that Daily Mail nonsense.
A planned and sustained attack campaign against reform-minded Muslims. My reply to recent allegations.
“It doesn’t matter if you are in the right. It doesn’t matter if lots of ‘ordinary people’ do the same. In times such as these, the public wants a hero. They do not want an ‘ordinary’ person”. These words were uttered to me by my ever wise wife Rachel, after footage of my stag night in London was vindictively leaked to the press.
…
I have already mentioned that this was a stag night before my marriage. However, even if it were after my marriage, Rachel had already known about it. As a liberal, what consenting adults do in private – whether in or out of wedlock – is not for me to judge. In current times, our moral uproar is best reserved for those who aspire to stone men or women to death, not those who consensually watch women, or men for that matter, dance. In fact, please be prepared to see me again around London sometime, you may even catch me dancing. As long as Rachel is happy, I will not suddenly stop going out. And if you see me, do come over and say hello.
He points out that he’s a non-devout Muslim, so he’s not being a hypocrite. He doesn’t consider consensual erotic dancing at odds with his feminism. He says it was a planned put-up job.
So what could possibly explain all this? Followers of my counter-extremism work will be aware that for years liberal Muslim voices like mine have been subjected to sustained personal attack. Organised incitement (hurryupharry.org/…/more-horrifying-death-threats-against-m…/), death threats (www.telegraph.co.uk/…/Lib-Dem-candidate-receives-death-thre…) and even physical assault (http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/…/world_n…/article176412.ece) are frequent occurrences. The article mentions my son from a previous marriage, the truth is I have been denied contact with him for three years now for very similar reasons. Challenging the Muslim status quo today is mercilessly punishing business.
There is no doubt in my mind that this breach of my privacy was part of a pre-planned regressive-Muslim campaign (https://storify.com/Andrew_Nolan/maajid-nawaz-hatchet-job). My wife Rachel had in fact been receiving scary unsolicited emails very soon after my stag night last July from this strip club’s staff member. This staff member calls himself “Shah Free Gaza Jahan” on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/jahan79). He began planning this sting last year, immediately after my wedding, in collusion (https://www.facebook.com/jahan79) with a smear site called Mushy Peas. This site had already published (mushypeas.org/maajid-nawaz-wife/) photos of Rachel’s home, family profiles and private email address inviting people to harass her. To quote “Shah Free Gaza Jahan” from as far back as last October 2014 from the screen grab (https://plus.google.com…/11546…/albums/6137636038894699329…) of that smear site on his motives:
“I have a very interesting story regarding this fraud. Who can I contact to get his out? I was reluctant to let this out as we should cover another Muslims sins. But he’s an atheist (sic) now. So we good”.
After explaining that atheists seem to be fair game for him (for the record I am a Muslim), Shah Jahan was promptly redirected by a known caliphate supporting Islamist Dilly Hussain (hurryupharry.org/…/bullying-women-is-not-one-of-the-5-pill…/) to make contact via his infamous regressive 5Pillarz blog. This is all there in that screen grab for all to see. And thus last October, the plot was hatched.
This is how a politically conservative newspaper unwittingly cooperated with religiously regressive Muslims, to discredit my politically and religiously liberal voice.
Nice job, Daily Mail. You’re fans of Dilly Hussain, are you?
I hope he wins a seat next month.
oh jeebuz the irony!
I’ve just had a look at the daily mail article and OK I’m going to admit that I am familiar with the “gentleman’s club” in question as used to work less than 150 mtrs away, its Brown’s on the junction of Kingsland and Hackney roads and somewhere the “lads” and I would end up after works drinking. I used to prefer The Golden Axe around the corner where the comments below are even more appropriate.
The ironic thing is that the clientele of Brown’s appeared at least 50% umm, from the areas majority immigrant population which is Muslim.
The difference between Maajid Nawaz and i suspect a number of the other clients is that his wife is marrying him willingly, and although I suspect his wife did a face palm when the story broke she isn’t watching a large portion of the food budget disappearing on strippers.
And if anyone thinks its islamophobic to point out the number of Muslims who frequent this particular club, I could point to another one about a mile further into Hackney where a very large proportion of the audience is hasidic Jewish men.
Thing is , when you make it impossible for the passing religious police to see in, everyone seems to revert to the lowest common denominator.
opps, it seems from maajids facebook, the club was actually in Aldgate so Ive got the wrong club.
Aldgate is more of a business district so maybe there aren’t the numbers of “majority immigrant population” (I need to state it this way as its obviously impossible to identify a Muslim by sight, particularly when they have an alcoholic drink in their hand and are trying to climb over each other to get a better view).
The hypocrisy still stands however when the club owner and whoever leaked these tapes claim to be shocked that a Muslim would be in a strip club during Ramadan, when they obviously were.
Thatcher loved reactionary Islamists (she called them “traditionalists”). I hope he wins too, if only to spite the Daily Fail.
Oh, zing!