Having failed to intimidate me, the Quilliam foundation have now written to my webhost in the Netherlands, threatening to sue them in England (English law claims effective universal jurisdiction on libel). They are demanding that my webhost pays damages to the Directors of the Quilliam Foundation.
You will recall that Alisher Usmanov got this website temporarily closed down by threatening my then webhosts. I hope Quilliam will find my current webhosts made of sterner stuff, but repetition or mirroring of the Quilliam Foundation posts would be helpful at this stage. Here they are:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/public_money_go.html
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/all_blogger_ale.html
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/quilliam_founda.html#comments
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/we_are_instruct.html#comments
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/murray_to_quill.html#comments
Plus this one. of course.
I do not libel. All the money spent by the likes of Alisher Usmanov and Tim Spicer on lawyers’ letters to threaten me, my publishers and my webhosts has never resulted in anybody going to court against me, despite the fact I have always maintained the truth of what I have written and never bowed to threats to remove it. It is all still on here because it is all true.
I have written this to my webhosts:
There are loads of posts on my blog about this, and all my correspondence with them.
Key points:
At the time I pubklished my blog post, they had NOT filed their accounts
They filed their accounts six days AFTER I blogged that they had not filed them
At the time I blogged, their accounts were overdue and they did not have an extension ?” they applied for the extension THE DAY AFTER my blog that they had not filed their accounts ?” six days later they filed accounts
I have not at any stage accused the directors of stealing money. I have said that too much money goes into rewarding the Directors. Perfectly fair comment on a taxpayer funded organization ?” and a comment made by hundreds of others, repeatedly (google the Quilliam Foundation)
This is legal bullying. Having failed to intimidate me, they are trying to intimidate you
My own view is that, unless bloggers are prepared to stand up to this kind of intimidation, the internet is in deep trouble. The bad news is that English law claims the right to prosecute anyone anywhere in the world for posting to the internet as it can be read in England. This is a disgrace, and several US states have passed or are passing laws to protect their citizens from it. It is not impossible they would get your arse into an English court if they really wanted to make themselves infamous.
I am refusing to back down because I am quite confident that they are bluffing, and if they did go to court they would lose. I have in my five years of blogging received about sixty letters like the one you just got, and nobody has ever taken me to court, let alone won. It is called “chilling” ?” people are so terrified of UK libel law they usually back down when they get such a letter.
I cannot pretend it is one hundred per cent risk free to call their bluff. But if we give in the first time a wealthy institution pays a lawyer 500 dollars to write a letter, what is the purpose of our internet activity?
Craig
There is an interesting article in today’s Independent by Johann Hari about former “Islamic extremists.” Hari too notes the extraordinarily wealthy lifestyle of the Quilliam directors.
The most famous former Islamist fanatic in Britain is Maajid Nawaz ?” a high-cheekboned 31-year-old who walks with a self-confident strut. I make an appointment with him through his personal assistant, and he strides into the hotel lobby where we have arranged to meet in an immaculate and expensive suit. He seems to blend perfectly into the multi-ethnic overclass who use expensive hotels like this as their base…
We are served tea by the kind of effusive waitress who works in high-end London hotels. Maajid does not acknowledge her.
I get the impression Johann didn’t like Nawaz very much.
so what’s new….there always someone trying to shut your website down….tossers…they will fail
This is clearly becoming a matter of freedom of speech. To demand an apology is one thing, but to actually try to close down a very popular blog is something else.
Let us know if you want to guest blog this on our site Craig.
Aww diddums, I would threaten to tell their daddies of them. They may have their nice suits taken away and just be left with their soiled nappies. Do any of these specimens actually have ‘any’ meaningful credentials? No, thought not…
Hi Musab
Would be very grateful if MPAc (and anyone else) repetas this blog.
Fair play Craig, good luck.
Only problem for me is that Johann Hari is a bit of an arse.
It does not invalidate his message, but it does invalidate him as the messenger…
Thanks for keeping us informed, Craig. I’m a new visitor to your blog but quite a regular one, from now on.
I’ve “stumbled” some of your posts and given them a “thumbs up”, trying to spread the knowledge and honesty that you champion.
You are an example to all of us, citizens of the world, on how to combat the system from within, in a peaceful but meaningful way.
I think the QF would be well-advised to ponder Denis Healey’s First Law of Holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging.
Now is hardly the time to appear self-obsessed, illiberal and vindictive. If they continue in this vein they may find that one particular gravy train will be departing platform one without them on board.
I wonder how long before New Labour pull the rug from under the “Quilliam Foundation”.
Wow.
At what point do you think this story becomes newsworthy in itself?
I mean this does seem to jar with a lot of what they claim to be representing, and it is tax-payers money, and its not like they don’t already have several enemies in journalistic circles….
“At the time I pubklished my blog post, they had NOT filed their accounts
“They filed their accounts six days AFTER I blogged that they had not filed them”
That’s what I don’t get. What sort of case do they think they have against you? They’re bullshitting like crazy.
News on the latest research report from Quilliam is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8361440.stm
Something about Abu Qatada broadcasting sermons in prisons via the heating pipes…
I heard this on the R4 Today programme this morning at 07.12am:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8361000/8361744.stm
where QF bod James Brandon was being interviewed.
Mirrored:
http://disruptive.org.uk/2009/11/16/craig_murray_and_quilliam.html
Precisely. Where’s the libel?
Interesting story about Maajid Nawaz, but like Rory’s story there’s a dirty great big elephant in the room which one just can’t avoid.
In Rory’s case it’s the tale of a young and carefree quixotic British traveller in ME who decides just on the off chance to turn up unannounced in Baghdad to see if he can “help out”, and is then offered the governership of not one but two Iraqi provinces!
In Maajid’s case it’s why neither CIA nor SIS thought to visit him in any of the friendly jails he found himself in. He doesn’t mention them, and yet they must have had an interest. Why is he leaving them out? What’s their part in his conversion from extremism to supporting their view of the world?
Interestingly too, both tales have been remarked upon more for what they leave out than what they put in.
Both have that coached quality about them. A commentator here remarked that Rory’s story was much too impersonal and rather classic in its form to read as a believable personal account. Similarly Hari has remarked on how Nawaz became irritable when he tried to probe the account beyond the surface.
These are the classic telltale signs of invention.
And we know who the mother of invention is…
All agencies
Criminals Are Taking Over Our Jails!!
There was concern and consternation throughout government and media today about reports from the highly respected Quilliam Foundation that criminals have been taking over our jails.
A highly respected spokesman from the highly respected Quilliam Foundation has told the highly repected BBC that criminals have been associating with known criminals in prison and talking to and telling eachother things.
A highly respected government source has conceded that ministers may have taken their eye off the ball on this one recently, but that’s why the highly respected Quilliam Foundation deserve much more taxpayers money for alerting us to all these sinister dangers to democracy and the freedom loving international community.
The source also said that the highly repsected BBC are to be highly commended for incisive journalism of such high quality that they deserve more taxpayers money too.
These people are complete idiots.
There is no libel or defamation anywhere in your posts Craig.I’m sure they know that.I’m certain the real truth behind all of this is that you’ve merely embaraased them,prior to a funding revue/scramble ahead of a new Tory Govt.In their infantile,pathetically ill-considered and reactive pique they’ve lashed out at you Craig-without a single thought in their little bonus-grabbing,ultra-ambitious mendacious little minds.
QF?It seems these types of bullshit organisation’s real speciality is shooting themselves in the foot.
It’ll beinteresting though to see just how far these twats pursue this hubristic folly before someone wiser,higher up orders them to get fuckin REAL.
Screenshots saved here:
http://smogsblog.wordpress.com/miscellaneous-stuff/craig-murrays-blogs-on-the-quilliam-foundation/
Research the connections of Ed Husain (Mohammed Mahbub Hussain) & the Hizb ut-Tahrir lot at Newham college. A Nigerian Christian student, Ayotunde (Tundi) Obanubi, was murdered at Newham College in February 1995. This event, Ed Husain states, in his book (The IslaMI5t), that this incident ‘led him to question his political beliefs and associations’.
Th Obanubi murder incident also led to a trial, at which, one_ Kazi Nurur Rahman_ was acquitted on the directions of the judge.
Kazi Rahman (Abdul Haleem/Halim) then goes on to be a mouthpiece for al-Muhajiroun, around 2001 (alongside Al Qaeda ‘telltale’ Mohammed Junaid Babar).
Rahman was involved in the ‘Fetiliser Bomb Plot Conspiracy’, in that he was present alongside the others while they were in Pakistan.
Rahman was ‘eventually’ caught in a ‘sting operation’ in November 2005, when he tried to …’buy missiles to shoot down airliners’.
When interviewed by police, Rahman claimed he was working for MI5, who had recruited him 10 years earlier.
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6206886.stm
Curiouser & Curioser…
I’m sure there are a few things that the Quilliam Foundation & their spook friends don’t want made public….
I think it is disgraceful how the Quilliam Foundation is using public money to harras you in this way.
I am asking everyone to make a post on facebook about the underhanded tactics used by Quilliam, and the tons of public money wasted!
Its obvious from their shallow behaviour that Ed Jagger is actually Ed Hussain.
How sad!
Instead of this complete load of old bollocks which is like a spat between spoilt children, I am reading of some friends of my daughter – who are still at University. They got off their arses, and travelled to one of the poorest places on the planet, and are organising the construction and funding of sanitation systems and provision of healthcare, training and education.
I come across quite a lot of people like this, who instead of joining the army to get their legs blown off, actually do something constructive.
Tony
qullam should be renamed:
“how to milk whitey”
That is what they are all about.
They tried fighting collonialism and lost so they decided:
“If you can’t beat them, milk them”
They got tired of being run away slaves so decided to become house niggers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zUIjP4KWok
Now they get paid to say whatever they say. And they like it!
To keep it, they try to show master that master needs them to keep the field negros in check. So that’s why Qullam lie, because they need to show they are needed. That is why they love NeoLabour so much, because if it or the wars end, Qullam have outlived their usefulness and the Houseniggers of Qullam will be back in the field.
“Rahman was ‘eventually’ caught in a ‘sting operation’ in November 2005, when he tried to …’buy missiles to shoot down airliners’.
When interviewed by police, Rahman claimed he was working for MI5, who had recruited him 10 years earlier.”
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6206886.stm
This is a fairly common theme in spook affairs. The spooks recruit people on whom they’ve got something and then tell them to engage in some terrorist operation or other.
What the spooks are trying to do is stir up fear in the public so that we give them more and more money and more and more leeway to do as they please.
In criminal circles it’s called “the protection rackets”, a good money maker.
It’s been clear over many years that spook agencies are useless at pretty much anything but causing confusion and soaking up taxpayers money, so much so indeed that we need protection from spooks much more than we need protection from all the bogeymen and hobgoblins they invent.
David Elstein has an interesting letter in the current Private Eye which is quite revealing on how the friends of MI5 etc, in academe, media and parliament massage the truth in order to continue taxpayer support for these buffoons.
Their only value, if any at all, is to so bugger things up that no one quite knows what’s going on and the wealthy can continue unfettered their money-making schemes.
These are evil bastards. make no mistake about it.
So a government organisation is trying to threaten sites abroad to make them censor. Lets hope the Chinese don’t notice & point out how liberal it makes them look.
16 November 2009
“Friends in high places”…
http://tinyurl.com/yzdsy69
Reading Johann Hari’s article, this sounds like a bit of a tragic situation. It appears that the ex-Islamists behind the Quilliam foundation really did turn away from extremist views. But they remain flawed humans, and capable of behaving like typical politicians. They appear to have over-reacted to criticism. Hopefully they will learn a lesson the hard way, and return to their real purpose, which is to exert an influence against the extremist Islamism that they were originally sucked into.
Craig, I hope that you get to this point in the comments and get to read this. I have an offer of help for you to consider:
I’m nearly 70, and by the ridiculously bloated standards of current-time Britain, I live below the poverty line. Not by my own standards, you understand, nor by those of the poor majority of the world’s people; by our standards, I live like a prince, beyond the dreams of avarice of earlier generations, and I’m very comfortable and content with my lot.
But — I have no savings, negligible property, beyond the very modest narrowboat on which I live, and my only white (as opposed to occasional bits of black) income is from my single man’s state pension.
So you see, from the point of view of these parasite legal schmucks who are trying to shake you down or frighten you, I’m unprofitable.
Also, because I’m intractable as an aroused Pit Bull, and unfrightenable with it, I’m willing to host any statement which is true, and honourable, by you or anyone else with whom I agree, on a mirror site in my own name.
Having seen some evidence of your own courage and honour, Craig, I don’t imagine that you’re going to frighten or crumple any time soon. But if you need someone to do strategic mirroring of your posts, and to tell the reptiles of the English libel-law cesspit to go fuck themselves — and then to sue me and be damned, then I’ll get your back. I’d very much enjoy the chance to defend myself in court, like the McLibel Two, and make hay of the hyper-rich scum by splurging all the truths that they don’t want aired.
Let me know, here or by a direct email, if I can help. It will be an honour, and a fierce pleasure too. Sod the reptiles! (Oh, and apologies to real reptiles for the insulting metaphor)
As a Muslim who reverted to Islam more than a decade ago, I always been conscious that some of my brothers and esoecially the Imams from the Indian sub-continent appear to regard English people and English authority, not as ‘people of the Book’ i.e. followers of the Taurat or the Gospels such as they are in their present form, but instead as hated polytheists like the Hindus.
This despising attitude has hurt me personally enourmously, because I know that English people are often very close to Islam, through reading and absorbing their own Book over centuries. The Islamists interviewed appear to have discovered this reality only recently and by a difficult road. Have they rebounded into moderate Islam because their bacon been saved by MI5/6? I don’t think so. What they have discovered is that the bastards who colonised India etc also oppressed and colonised the citizens of the UK. We hated them as much as they did and we still hate the present colonisers the same. Could the UK’s dissidents of that age speak out any more than today’s?
On the other hand, this Quilliam rabble of gravy trainers have failed to understand that there were collaborators with the colonisers before, from the nations that were being colonised. They forget that their countries could not have been colonised without the traitors of those times. Helping the UK to succeed in the public relations campaign to continue the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in exchange lots of dosh, may not seem sinful to them at this time, and it gives encouragement to the colonisers. Ultimately God knows them and will inform them of their deeds.
Anno, “hated polytheists like the Hindus”? Including Mahatma Gandhi, I suppose? And what justifies communal hate at all? Are we not humans first of all, and anything else afterwards? Does not the line between good and evil, right attitudes and wrong ones, run through every human heart?
If you read Johann Hari’s article you will find in it a good insight into how some people became Islamists, and how they turned away. Essentially they came to realise that (a) the Koran did not always have to be taken literally, (b) there was no central authority that could command one interpretation, (c) there could and should be a distinction between spiritual things of enduring value, and political decisions that applied only to a certain place and time, and last but not least (d) human experiences that they could not deny, such as acts of genuine kindness from “unbelievers”, making it impossible to believe in the rightness of waging indiscriminate war against whole communities.
Craig. If you need a hand with the Dutch end of things, let me know.
ok?
j
Abu Rene
What justifies communal hatred?
Collaboration with an 18/19th century superpower ( British ) to get rid of their Muslim rulers, maybe?
Perhaps this splash of new realisation that the Holy Qur’an does not have to be taken literally, and that an Islamic state does not concern itself with Sharia, but is basically secular, is the Muslim leadership here doing a Vicar of Bray with the new Tory government in waiting. When a big new dog comes into the park, it’s as well to roll over and let it sniff your bollocks. If you want to have the same perks and priveledges you had under Jack Straw, that is. That particular piece of bollocks about Islam not concerning itself with Sharia, mentioned in Johann Hari’s article is a piece of fiction from the Islamic Brotherhood, who have an even bigger dog to appease than new Tory government.
Anyway, now that we know that the Tory party is funded by Zionists, ( Channel 4 20.00 p.m. last night,) we won’t have to waste time blogging about the wrongness of it when they are in power. You knew this was part of the package, and the people of Britiain voted us in.