@Sunny Hundal (69 )
” Don,t worry tim-I,m reliably informed that a bunch of sock puppets have been told to go and challenge any mention of this story,and publish anything that would support Policy Exchange,as if to pretend they did nothing wrong. Its classic FUD ( Fear; Uncertainty; Doubt Tactic )

mmm- a Fud, A Fud. Would that be right wing Fud by any chance ? because that counts me out then.
No seriously for a second, Sunny , I believe many people who have followed this event and made comments here and like Lara who have made some valid points,may find it difficult, and knowing what we know about the well funded Wahabi-Stealth-Jihad, to give the Mosques the benefit of the doubt. if you are going to practice stealth,it would would defeat the entire purpose of it if you owned up.
For Christs sake,how many times does somebody have to say it ” the literature was advertised on their web-site, and yet Paxman answers ” yes ,but thats an entirely different matter”.
Is It ??
You above quoted remark is conspiratorial and not encouraging to (don,t shoot the messanger ) debate. It makes feel guilty of a crime I have not commited.
Subversive literature- in a mosque ? Think-Tank with sly, cunning,conservative,deceitfull agenda ? Policy Exchange deserves a hearing before condemnation–on motive alone.

The above blog post speaks for itself.

So a statement that includes the phrase “We are happy to set the record straight.” is not an apology, but a ‘re-affirmation’. Right.

Have you read the PX report to which you refer? The only reason I ask is because if you had you would know that the ‘apology’ to which you refer is nothing more than a reiteration of what the report states in the first place – namely that although extreme literature was obtained in a number of mosques, there was no indication that the mosques’ management was complicit in, or aware of, their distribution. So rather than mistakenly calling this an apology, you should be a bit more honest and call it what really is: a reaffirmation. Do you really think that when al-Manar threatened to sue Policy Exchange the only demand they made was that PX publicly repeat what they have already said in their report? Do us all a favour and get serious, al-Manar clearly lost this.

By not extracting a retraction of the original Policy Exchange claim that literature was being sold without the knowledge of management, it means this conclusion amounts to a climbdown by the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre. It effectively accepts that those receipts were NOT fabricated.

Hopefully, it means that other groups or the press will feel able to exert pressure on the mosques which stock misogynistic literature.

Thanks once again. There was nothing ‘rambling’ about your comments — on the contrary, you have some actual experiences to share, even though they are not my experiences. We can all go much further with this debate if everyone is civil. Anyone who descends to the level of an ‘insult-fest’ has conceded defeat. Sunny’s response that I am “making excuses for a bunch of useless ideologues” certainly falls in that category and is therefore disappointing. Does it not occur to him that he is in effect protecting religious ideologues?

The way women are treated and discussed in literature does not belong in the realms of ideology. That much should be taken for granted by people living in the West.

Your note about the north/south divide as far as mosques are concerned was very interesting, since I am not familiar with those in the north.

After all the comments on this post — the mystery remains: is it not strange that the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre has not claimed a victory on its own behalf and that it is dependent on sunny to act as its cheeleader? Or that it has not claimed at least nominal damages? It seems fair to conclude that there was no climbdown of any sort — the Policy Exchange statement reprinted above reiterates what it said in the original report. The literature was sold on the mosque premises, without the knowledge of the management. That translates as a concession by the mosque.

No need to apologise. As for the ‘rogue sellers’, it is something we’ll just have to agree to disagree on. I feel that it’s much more likely the receipts were forged by PX than the sellers making fake ones.

In terms of Mosques, I would say that there is a north/south divide, where Mosques in the North tend to be smaller and have pre-printed letterheads or receipt books (for donations that is). They also tend not to have libraries and are very strict about what literature third party people can put in. As I haven’t been to many London mosques, I can’t comment as well on those.

I’ve seen the ‘Men that are doomed to Hell’ book in several Islamic Book stores (again, mainly in the North). I would say that there is a problem with the fact that most of these book are written by people abroad, translated into English, printed and then shipped here with little thought as to it’s content and suitability, but this is beginning to change as more and more of our Islamic Scholars are British born and trained in Britain.

And thanks for actually listening to me rambling on and I’m glad the conversation hasn’t descended into insult-fests like so many other people’s do.

I’ve made two documentaries about domestic violence and forced marriages that women of South Asian origin face – and written countless articles. A PX report, and that too badly put together, won’t change squat. Please stop making excuses for a bunch of useless ideologues.

Of course the ‘rogue sellers’ did not go home to forge a receipt. But by the very nature of their status, they would not have what may be considered ‘official’ receipts. As for getting addresses wrong, you should know as well as any frequent visitor to mosques not to look for precision where none exists. Many mosques have startling variations in the way they compose their addresses (let alone sellers at book fairs), and certainly, many spelling errors inevitably creep in too. That is not newsworthy. Perhaps the truth in this story is too prosaic and unexciting for Newsnight… If you actually read what the reporter wrote on his blog, you will understand why he had many of us laughing at his extreme naivety!

To say that ‘most Mosques do have pre-printed letterheads’ is not my experience. Anything pre-printed is a rarity. This is why so many resort to photo-copying anything with their logo (if they have one). One mosque issued a standard receipt – which the fussy Policy Exchange people were dissatisfied with, and they asked the researcher to go back and fetch something with a logo. Newsnight confirmed the veracity of the standard written receipt, but not the later one on headed paper. That means that the books WERE obtained from that mosque, which is the whole point.

As for it being unlikely for a mosque to give a receipt for a book which is ‘incriminating’, you are forgetting that they were selling/giving these books to fellow-Muslims who had spent time at the mosques and earned their trust.

You should be worried about the literature mosques are selling, since they will influence the next generation. The definition of what constitutes ‘extremist literature’ depends on who you ask. All the books in the report were extremist by my definition, and may even be in yours if you read some of them.

Where did you come across ‘Men who are doomed to hell’? If it was in a general bookstore, it does not belong in this discussion. There is a world of difference between the material you would find in a regular bookshop and one attached to a mosque. A mosque has a duty not to sow prejudice against half of the Muslim population. Newsnight found ‘women who deserve to go to hell’ at the mosque in Wycombe. Has anyone questioned why they sell it, or why the Regents Park Mosque stocks the books which were confirmed by Newsnight? Newsnight certainly has a lot to answer for by going off on its pathetic tangent. It has helped no-one, and has actually harmed the interests of Muslim women.

I certainly enjoyed this exchange with you. The very fact that you are willing to air your views is encouraging, and I’ll look out for your comments on other topics in the future.

I wouldn’t hold my breath. I also heard that the cultural centre and the north london mosque were preparing their cases.

You’ve completely ignored my point. You said:

Their version has not changed one iota since the report, as anyone who has actually read it will agree. The report specified that the intolerant literature may have been on sale without the knowledge of the mosque management. Further, it stated that the mosque may need help from the authorities in coping with ‘rogue sellers’.

This is the third party I’m talking about. You’re asking me to believe that these ‘rogue sellers’ went home forged a receipt in the Mosque’s name and then gave it to the ‘researchers’?

It also makes no sense for the Mosque to improvise a receipt (and get the address wrong). Most Mosques do have pre-printed letterheads or charity books that would have done equally well with much less hassle. It’s also highly unlikely that a Mosque would agree to give a receipt on a book that could be highly incriminating in the future, even if the customer insisted upon one.

Newsnight was not aware of the receipts specifically, but they were aware that PX claimed to have evidence. PX being willing to give the receipts doesn’t mean anything. I’m also curious as to how they explain the fact that two receipts from different Mosques were written at the same location.

When I said, ‘random conspiracy where PX was duped’, I meant your statement where you claimed the receipts were accepted in good faith by PX who had no idea that they were improvised.

There around 1,500 mosques in Britain. If a quarter of them were peddling extremist literature, it would be very worrying indeed. In my lifetime, I’ve visited around a hundred of these Mosques, and not one peddled extremist literature.

If I was non-Muslim woman and I stepped into a Book-store with that title, I would be very worried (well terrified). But I’ve come across books that are titled ‘Men who are doomed to hell’, which leads me to think that this isn’t a case of mysoginism. After all, Doom-mongering is what religions do best

Why don’t you help, by highlighting the misogynistic literature in mosques and related bookshops?

Policy Exchange was acting according to western standards of evidence in demanding receipts. Since mosques rarely (if ever) hand out receipts, there are no ’standard’ receipts. They were improvised by the mosques and accepted by Policy Exchange in good faith. By definition, improvised receipts are just that, and cannot be ‘forgeries’. Newsnight was not aware the receipts existed until Policy Exchange volunteered them. That is not what an organisation with something to hide would have done.

Nor did I even come close to suggesting, as you claim, that there was ‘a random conspiracy where PX were duped’. Only Newsnight was duped.

You yourself pointed out the Policy Exchange claim about ‘a quarter of British mosques peddling hate literature’. That leaves the majority, 75% according to Policy Exchange, who do not. You are evidently in agreement with them on that point.

Re Muslim women, you should give me a break. Here we are not discussing whether or not ‘most Muslim women in Britain are happy with their lives’. Try to imagine what it feels like for women and young girls to see titles such as ‘women who deserve to go to hell’ on sale in mosque bookshops, or at events aimed at families such as Global Peace and Unity. If you see nothing wrong with it, then you are part of the problem.

There are many problems that Muslim women face, in the UK and worldwide. But Policy Exchange isn’t doing much to help them – there are lots of others who are doing some excellent work.

is the truth of it. And Newsnight called their bluff.

This type of sensationalism has no place in public service broadcasting.

I agree. But it’s the sensationalism, and evidence manipulation, of PX that is the problem.

Not to mention how hilariously they threw their toys out of the pram when they didn’t get their way (court casae still pending?). As are the commenters on here, who seem happy with fabricated accounts of Muslim radicalism, doing.

Perhaps once the ‘unavailable’ researchers came back from wherever it was, PX got a nasty shock.

For ‘liberals’, bashing the messenger is much more fun, isn’t it? Alas, Muslim women cannot afford that luxury.

When claims such as ‘a quarter of British mosques peddling hate literature’ are made, it is expected that all the evidence is correct, especially at a time when relations between the Muslim Community and the rest of Britain is so tense.

No Mosque I’ve ever been to gives out receipts, it just doesn’t happen, even if you demand one. Even your explanation of a third party selling or giving away these books doesn’t make sense, seeing as it would be odd for them to sell them under the letterhead of the mosque. A forgery is the most plausible explanation and not some random conspiracy where PX were duped.

The vast majority of mosques self-censor to make sure that they can’t be accused of such things.

As for your comments about Muslim women, give me a break. Most Muslim women in Britain are happy with their lives and over the past few years, the Muslim community, and not the government, has been at the forefront of tackling issues such as forced marriages etc.

Newsnight raised doubts about a minority of the receipts (five out of eighteen) accumulated by Policy Exchange’s researchers – so there is an allegation, unproven, hanging over a proportion of the receipts.

That’s because the case was settled before it went to court… why not ask PX why it didn’t go to court?