Private Eye on Extremism and Islam

This caught my eye a couple of days ago in Private Eye.....


HOW EXTREMISM WORKS

"Extremist threat to UK Jews" screamed the Sun's front page on 7 January, above the exclusive story of a "hate hit list" of British Jews feared to be targeted by Islamic extremists seeking revenge for Israel's invasion of Gaza.

The story cited postings made to online Muslim forum ummah.com on which "Abuislam" asked: "Have we got a list of top Jews we can target? Can someone post names and addresses?"

The Sun's "anti-terror expert", Glen Jenvey, warned his readers: "Those listed should treat it very seriously. Expect a hate campaign and intimidation by 20 or 30 thugs."

But where did the thugs come from? One member of the ummah.com forum had suggested collecting names of Isreal's supporters "so that we can write polite letters". And when Abuislam asked for "top Jews we can targert", the same member advised against direct action: "The best thing to do is not to contact them directly. But identify a Muslim organisation who works in that field or in that area and convince them to act to marginalise [sic] the zionists' activity."

"Abuislam" was having none of it, however: "Polite will not work. Target them with demo's out-side their home's and business hit and run demo's showing and exposing their war crimes in their support", he wrote.

So who is this "Abuislam" who wants to run a hate campaign against "Siralan" Sugar and Co? Suspicion was roused by ummah's administrators when their system detected that his account had been accessed using the same computer as another user by the name of Richard Tims. A glance over Mr Tim's history on the site revealed that he only posted on the forum to promote a website - the now defunct www.sellyourstory.org - offering cash for Islamic stories "wanted by the media worldwide".

And who listed as the contact for sellyourstory? Step forward...Glen Jenvey, the Sun's terror expert.

The story has since been removed from the Sun's website, and the PCC is investigating a number of complaints.