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September 17, 2005

al Guardian

By

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs had earlier renamed the UK's left wing newspaper with an appropriately Arabic prefix. Now, a rival lefty (but saner, usually) UK newspaper The Independent has discovered that al Guardian emplys a member of a hard—line Islamist organization.

Dilpazier Aslam, who has been allowed to report on the London bombings from Leeds and was also given space to write a column in last Wednesday's edition of The Guardian, is a member of Hizb ut—Tahrir, a radical world organisation which seeks to form a global Islamic state regulated by sharia law.

Of course, he was brought into the newsroom of al Guardian to increase "diversity." But you already figured that out, didn't you? He's staying because his organization is still legal in Britain.

Jack Kemp  7 18 05

Update:

The Wall Street Journal (subscription only) has this to say on the matter this morning:

Instead of shunning Islamic radicals, many in the mainstream media and political establishment present them as moderates and repeat their justifications for terrorism. The London attacks produced only a brief moment of polite restraint. By Wednesday, less than a week after the July 7 bombings in London that claimed 55 lives, the Guardian apparently had no second thoughts about publishing an article by Dilpazier Aslam, one of its trainee journalists. In it, Mr. Aslam argued that the British have no right to be shocked by the attacks since that would, "suggest that the bombings happened through no responsibility of our own."

Further update:

Shay Goss wrote to us and informed us that this story was broken by an American blogger working in the U.K., Scott Burgess, proprietor of the Daily Ablution Blog. It is the first time that a U.K. blogger item has made a media dispute within the MSM, now that the Independent has picked—up the story. Congratulations to Scott and thanks to Shay for clueing us in.

Further further update:

Tim Worstall writes from the UK telling us that some UK—based bloggers have made the MSM before. The difference this time is that an intra—MSM fight has broken out, ala Rathergate.

I chose my words poorly and have now corrected the item just above. My thanks to Tim.