COMMENT: Why David Hicks matters ...

I've just started reading David Hicks' memoirs. I'm upto the part where he travels to Pakistan and spends time with the Tabligh Jamaat, an international Muslim missionary effort founded in India during the early 1940's. So many young Muslims have been with the TJ at some stage or other, myself included.

Hicks has gove to Pakistan after spending some time with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) who were fighting with the support of the United States and its NATO alies. Some fruitloops like to claim that the KLA was ome kind of al-Qaeda outfit. That's a bit like saying that the Vatican is a product of the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church.

Cynthia Banham reminds us in a column for the Sydney Morning Herald of why Hicks' memoirs are important. Here are some excerpts.

... Hicks's memoirs are an important development for our democracy.
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Why? The Howard and Rudd governments failed to investigate his allegations of abuse, mistreatment and torture while in US custody. Consequently, this is likely to be our only insight into what happened to him.

I haven't yet read Leigh Sales' book about Hicks so I can't confirm or deny this. Then again, I think Sales' book was published when Hicks was still at the gulag.

As a liberal democracy, the manner in which our government treats Australian citizens, or permits them to be treated by foreign states, in a time of war or national security crisis - or any time - should concern us.

It should concern us unless we are carried away by the hysteria of those who want us to ignore legal obligations and act on our emotions.

But Hicks pleaded guilty in a court, did he not? Certainly that was John Howard's line before two shoes were thrown in his direction in an ABC studio. And what kind of court was it?

... Hicks never got a day in a court to consider his claims - a properly constituted court, which followed accepted rule-of-law procedures ... He was tried by a farcical military commission that the British refused to let its own citizens be subjected to, and that President Barack Obama has denounced as flawed.

The Skaf brothers, Ivan Milat and Martin Bryant had their days before a properly constituted court. Was Hicks ever found to have raped or murdered anyone?

Do yourself a favour and go out and read this book. It's written in such simple language that even Tim Blair might understand it.



Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Race and religion ...

A number of people have responded to my piece published in The Age today by claiming that I have confused race and religion. The confusion seems to largely arise out of the beginning paragraphs:

In the early '90s, I was in the final stages of my university studies and had too much time on my hands. I started teaching Muslim scripture to year 1 and 2 kids at a south-west Sydney school. On my first day, the principal took me around to various classes to pick out the Muslim children for my class. We entered a year 1 classroom. The principal asked: ''Hands up, kids, if you are Muslim.''

A small, blonde girl put her hand up. The principal looked at her and said, ''But Jasmina, you don't look Muslim!'' The poor little girl started to cry.

It turned out the little girl's parents were from Sarajevo. Given the high rate of inter-marriage in her homeland, it is quite possible only one parent was Muslim in a Bosnian sense.

But what does it mean to be Muslim in a Bosnian sense?

Indeed. What does it mean to be Muslim in Bosnia? Is it the same as being Muslim in Malaysia? Or Indonesia? Or Lebanon? And which of the Bosnian women below aren't Muslim?



Some responses to my article included this ...

Islam is a religion not a race. Being Muslim is a choice.

... and this ...

You do realise, Irfan Yusuf, that Muslim is not a race. Neither is Christian. Do your bloody homework.

... and this ...

"What does it mean to be Muslim in a Bosnian sense?"
I guess it means that you come from Bosnia and practice Islam.
Not such a profound question, really.

Actually it is a very profound question. In Bosnia, there are basically three "nationalities". You are Serb, or you are Croat or you are Muslim. If you are not Serb or Croat, you are generally classed as a Muslim. It has little or nothing to do with what religion, if any, you practise.

To make matters more complicated, Bosnia is a country with a high rate of inter-marriage. So if a Muslim woman marries a Serb man, what are the kids considered to be?

This proved to be a huge issue during the Bosnian war of the mid-90's.

Then there is Malaysia, where the constitution seems to mix up being Malay with being Muslim. Except that Indian Muslims often don't get the same privileges as Malay Muslims.

Ethnicity and religion is often mixed up. Religion often is treated as more of a racial characteristic. One doesn't always have a choice.

One does, however, have a choice to have a good laugh at Daily Telegraph opinion editor Tim Blair and the Tea Partying wingnut brigade who congregated around his Daily Telegraph bog (no, that was not a typo). Here is Tim's latest attempt at analysis. Interestingly there is no reference to my physique as is so often the case. Perhaps Tim is finally entering adulthood.

UPDATE I: Why does Rupert Murdoch keep the likes of Bolt & Blair on the payroll? Serial fruitloop Glenn Beck might have the answer ...



"How does Rupert Murdoch keep me on the air ..."

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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COMMENT: Tim Blair's sensitive writing on bipolar disorder ...

Tim Blair writes a gorgeous piece about his Aunt Jill and her struggles with bipolar disorder. There really is nothing further I can add to it except that it is a must-read.

UPDATE I: We all pray for Tim and his relatives. Any readers who believe they may be suffering or know something who might be suffering from this condition should read this after reading Tim's fine piece.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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VIDEO: Bush appointee makes Blair & Bolt look like stupid racists ...

Not all American conservatives are boofheads. Just look at this Bush appointee who appears on the Rachel Maddow show ...



Notice what this Bush political appointee has to say about wingnut conservatives. That's right. A Bush appointee. Even Bush would not be stupid enough to appoint wingnuts, who must seek employment instead as bloggers and opinion editors in American-owned tabloids.

And so we have a guy appointed by former US President George W Bush telling us that the likes of Blair and Bolt are supporting an agenda that is racist and could damage the morale of American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

BLOG: Daily Telegraph opinion editor publishes call to virtual Muslim genocide ...

I wonder if Michael Danby will make a speech in Parliament about this.

Tim Blair, far-Right opinion editor of the Sydney tabloid Daily Telegraph, published a comment on his blog that literally calls for Mecca to be destroyed and facilitated all-out war in South Asia and the Middle East involving invasions of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria etc.

Here it is:

The US should have immediately attacked Mecca with a nuclear strike and brought the war to the heart of Islam.

They should have let the Indians off the leash to do what they want with Pakistan and Afghanistan, told the Israelis that they can smash the Jordanians, Syrians and Gypos, then landed half the USMC in Libya and Lebanon and steamrolled east and south until they linked up with the Israelis.

The US Army and the other half of the USMC should have been deployed to the Gulf and launched an invasion of Saudi and Iraq and pushed toward Syria.

Everyone else should have been told to eff off until the job was done and then some.

This is where Bush failed. He was too soft on them. Too soft.

Islam delende est.

murph of Blackheath (Reply)
Sun 13 Sep 09 (12:06am)

Wholesale massacre and genocide. Tim Blair allows it on. He thinks it satisfied his newspaper's moderation policy. His editor Gary Linnell doesn't seem to mind. And the Member for Federal Ports hasn't said a word yet.

But hey, it isn't racist to call for people to be murdered and bombed and turned into compost on the basis of their deemed religion. I mean, religion is a matter of choice, isn't it? And Muslims aren't a race, are they? It ain't genocide, is it?

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Mr Danby and racist comment moderation ...

Mr Michael Danby, former editor of what used to be called the Australia-Israel Review and now Federal Labor Member for Melbourne Ports, has a go at two popular Australian websites - Crikey and NewMatilda. He engages in a grievance mass debate in the House of Representatives on 7 September 2009, the contents of which can be read here.

Mr Danby was scathing of these websites' moderating comments that he regarded as anti-Semitic and racist comments appearing after articles. Here are some terms he uses to describe comments published here on the subject of the Israel/Palestine conflict:

... unmoderated, unleashed and unhinged comments on their websites ... the broad slabs of hate speak published in the comments section following each article ... Newmatilda publishes blatantly bigoted commentary, even though the magazine explicitly reserves the right to moderate that commentary if it is abusive or promotes hate. Only since being exposed has Newmatilda stopped publishing race hate in its comment columns.

... Crikey and its editor, Jonathan Green, have made no explanation or issued no apology. Eric Beecher, the owner of Crikey, who hails from a similar ethnic cultural background to me, owes an explanation for Crikey’s publication of these hate filled comments. Such comments would be suited for publication in Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer.

I write for both websites on a fairly regular basis. Much of my writing for Crikey has been to expose racist commentary moderated in blogs published by far better resourced international news outlets. I have also exposed racist commentary made by bloggers and columnists, some of whom Mr Danby has accompanied on trips to Israel.

If Mr Danby is serious about racism on websites, he should consider making an issue of what is published in the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph. He should consider some of the anti-Lebanese, anti-African, anti-Muslim and anti-Aboriginal commentary published on the blogs of Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman.

Perhaps Mr Danby could provide some examples of comments left on NewMatilda and/or Crikey comparable to the ones found here or here or here. Or how about these?



All this begs one question: Is Mr Danby's refusal to attack these columnists' toleration of clearly racist, violent, xenophobic and fascistic remarks somehow related to their being solid supporters of the most far-Right views inside Israel? Would Mr Danby be more vocal in his criticism of these bloggers if they were somewhat less supportive of Israel?

INDONESIA: Tabloid expert declares terrorists poised to take over ...

Daily Telegraph resident blogger Tim Blair is worried about Indonesia being on the verge of taken over by the likes of Noordin Top. Apparently there are Noordin Tops in schools across Indonesia.

Understanding the cultures of non-Western countries and non-white peoples isn't one of Blair's strengths. So it's not surprising that Blair can't notice it's highly unlikely that Indonesian boarding schools are filled with Malaysians.

And what of these boarding schools? Well, Blair describes Indonesia's pesantren as ...

... these terror-breeding fundo-pods ...

... and after noting that there are 45,000 of these, states ...

The scale of the problem becomes clear. It’s broad-based rather than Top-down, you could say.

Yes, that was quite amusing. What's even more amusing is Blair's refusal to do some basic elementary research on indigenous Indonesian boarding schools and their role in Indonesian society, instead of writing them all off as terror factories.

And we all know about these nasty Indonesian schools. Blair's ideological compatriots in the US were busy during the last US Presidential Election trying to prove that US President Obama attended an Indonesian pesantran.

If Indonesian boarding schools were such terror factories, surely the biggest terrorist on the planet is this bloke. Still, Blair isn't the only "expert" to pontificate on pesantren.

RACISM: Middle Eastern religious leader labels Obama "slave" ...

Here's something you won't find mentioned at Andrew Bolt's blog. The leader of Israel's Shas party recently described US President Barack Obama as a slave.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is regarded as the spiritual leader of Shas, a Jewish fundamentalist party which supports the building of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Yosef was speaking in opposition to pressure from the Obama administration to cease building new settlements in the West Bank.

Here's how one news outlet reports it:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, has slammed U.S. President Barack Obama, describing him as "a slave" who seeks to rule the world and control Tel Aviv's affairs when it comes to construction of settlements in occupied Jerusalem, reports say.

"American insidiousness tells us to build here and not to build there, as though we were slaves working for them," he said in his weekly sermon Saturday, adding: "We live in a time when slaves are governing us and are trying to control us."

Turning down the Obama administration's request to stop illegal construction of settlements on Palestinian occupied territories, he said: "We are not employees of the Americans.. and Israel does not work for the United States."

Yosef then takes a leaf out of the book of Andrew Bolt and his blog fan club, making a racist attack on Arabs and wishing for their destruction.

The senior Rabbi then addressed the issue of Haram al Sharif (Dome of the Rock) saying: "...and where is our temple? The situation there is cause for grief. There is nothing there but evil Arabs who are occupying our lands…and I hope that the messiah will appear soon to destroy them."

The comments about Arabs were also reported by JTA which for some reason toned them down a little to read ...

Where is our temple? There are Arabs there!

Yosef isn't, of course, representative of mainstream Jewish opinion. Unlike Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair, I won't attempt to sheet home responsibility for his racist statements to Australians who happen to tick the "Judaism" box on their census forms. Nor will I demand that "moderate Jews" everywhere speak out and condemn these remarks, failing which they risk being labelled "Judeo-fascists". I know that Yosef is known for making obscene and imbecilic remarks that have even directly offended Jews.

Born in Iraq in 1920, Yosef is a former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel and a controversial figure who has in the past referred to Arabs and Palestinians as "snakes" and "vipers" who were "swarming like ants" ...

In 2000 he sparked outrage when he said that the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust did "not die for nothing," but were the "reincarnation of Jews who had sinned" in previous generations.

Members of Yosef's party are being linked to a massive money laundering and illegal organ trading investigation by the FBI. Among those whose organs were removed were impoverished Israelis. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports ...

Politicians expect the amount of funds contributed to institutions affiliated with or close to Shas, and its spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, will feel the pinch almost immediately ... One of the major figures arrested in the suspected money laundering case is Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, who is considered very close to Rabbi David Yosef, one of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's sons ... Another person arrested in the affair is Rabbi Edmund Nahum, who is considered very close to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef himself. Nahum was also involved in raising funds for the Yosef family institutions.

The Israel Police and the Justice Ministry's Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority will soon start investigating the Shas and other Sephardic institutions' yeshivas implicated in the scandal. The investigation may also include the banks suspected of transferring the allegedly tainted funds.

I guess it's hard to be a racist and a financial cleanskin at the same time no matter what your religious affiliation is.

BLOGS/IDIOCY: Tim Blair gives yet more room to Hizbut Tahrir loopies ...

Hizbut Tahrir (or "HT" for short) are a political party that wants to re-establish the Caliphate using various means. These include handing out pamphlets at mosques after Friday prayers, sticking up posters on Matthews Street Punchbowl and holding conferences in various parts of Sydney.

I've been to one of their conferences. Not terribly interesting affairs. But I have written about them. Here's something appearing in The Age some years back:

HT teaches that active involvement in democratic politics represents a fundamental breach of the sacred law. Democracy and secularism are declared un-Islamic, voting is forbidden and membership of secular political parties regarded as virtual apostasy. HT insists Muslims work outside the system and re-invent a more "Islamic" wheel, an approach seen by the well-integrated majority of Muslims as an exercise in futility.

Although HT's goal is the re-establishment of the caliphate, they have no clear plan of action. At this stage, HT does little more than distribute pamphlets and hold conferences.

And for something less serious, here's an excerpt from a piece in NewMatilda:

... the Muhammadiyah, one of Indonesia's two main Islamic 'churches.' At last count, the youth group of Muhammadiyah consists of a handful of members around 10 million. The other group, Nahdhatul Ulama (NU) has around 20 million in its youth wing and around 40 million in its senior wing.

The Indonesian wing of HT has around 150,000 members. Excuse me while I check my blood pressure ...

... HT's clumsily expressed methodology attracts so few people, and their ideology is so fringe, that they'll be lucky to take even a first step toward achieving any caliphate. HT should be compared less to al-Qaeda and more to the galaxy of loony socialist groups on campus seeking to establish socialism.

Suffice it to say that HT can't exactly count me as one of their media buddies. And they know it. Look at what they had to say about my piece at the Muslim Village idiots' forums.

Of course, there are some places where the HT crowd know their message will be reproduced almost unadulterated. Fringe attracts fringe, and the fringe fruitloop who edits the opinion page of Sydney's Daily Teleraph has shown his willingness to print entire press releases of HT as op-eds. Tim Blair is one of the few friends on the media HT can count on.

Which made me curious as to why Blair would describe yours truly as one of HT's "media defenders". Does Blair know something that even hard-headed HT aparatchiks don't?

When it comes to hpolding narrow-minded tunnel-visioned nonsensical positions and attract mainly complete morons to their discussions, Blair and HT have plenty in common.



Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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BLOGS/CRIKEY: Sydney Writers' Festival does blogging ...

To blog or not to blog? That was just one of the questions posed by moderator Rachel Hills to a panel of bloggers, journalists and one burnt-out ex-journalist at a Sydney Writers' Festival gig on Sunday.

The panel consisted of former Sydney Morning Herald scribe and Webdiary founder Margo Kingston, blogger and author Anthony Loewenstein, blogger and tabloid opinion editor Tim Blair and blogger and former editor of Girlfriend magazine Erica Bartle. Their task was to test the following proposition:

If bloggers are all wannabe journalists and journalists are all complacent hacks, why do so few manage to cross over?

The discussion was fairly free-flowing and surprisingly civil, given what one participant has written about two of the others. I'll summarise in "first person" what each speaker said at various points.

Kingston: Paul McGeogh kinda pushed me into citizen journalism via what was once the Herald's Webdiary, and I'm not sure whether to thank or sue him. The interaction with readers was the best thing that happened to me in journalism. Webdiary contributors included concerned expats and rural readers. Journos often put on a persona of detachment because they don't want their own personal failings exposed whilst quite happy to expose the same failings in others. Many future blog-related jobs will be about moderating comments, and those employed have a high burnout rate. Currently sub-editors do this.

Loewenstein: Why can't journalists also be advocates? Many effectively advocate despite the veneer of objectivity. Studies have shown that the vast majority of media stories are generated from one source or press release. Journos rarely talk to real people, content to talk to each other. In many non-Western countries, bloggers are the only source of non-state information and take enormous risks, many jailed and tortured.

Bartle: There are no rules in blogging, unlike journalism. Blogs provide a superficial readership experience. I rarely spend an hour online reading a feature article. So much womens magazine journalism is just googling or desktop journalism, with not enough going out into the "fashion trenches". Rarely do magazine writers speak to people beyond fixed contact lists. Journalist hopefuls should be careful with what they put online as potential employers may not like what you write even if it's well-written.

Blair: I started blogging after a long career in journalism for Time Magazine and the Daily Telegraph. I'm somewhat lazy and the short form of blogging suited me. When you write a blog post, you can't help but tell something about yourself (perhaps something like this?). Blog journalists are surprisingly thin-skinned. I encourage young upcoming journos to blog. It's like an online CV. In these recessionary times, blogging can lead to employment. The Daily Telegraph doesn't have paid comment moderators (Yep, we can tell).

And what did the chairperson have to say? My notes show Rachel Hills saying she only found a few bloggers in mainstream media interesting enough to visit.

First published in Crikey on 25 May 2009.

UPDATE I: A regular commenter on Tim Blair's bog recently commented on the SWF discussion here. Tim leaves his own comment. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

HATEWATCH: Tim Blair's buddies inadvertently accuse Jews of belonging to an "intolerant faith" ...

I've said and written this many a time. The prejudicial rhetoric used against certain minority groups today is merely a repetition of the prejudicial rhetoric used against other minority groups in times gone past. In the years leading upto the Holocaust, the European and Western far-Right imposed their uncontrolled and unmedicated hate toward anyone they deemed Jewish. Today they do the same against anyone deemed Muslim.

The regular band of nutbags that surround Daily Telegraph opinion editor Tim Blair are typical examples of this phenomenon. Even before his blog was hosted by the Tele, Blair allowed a host of racist commentary onto his site, including this classic about Rupert Murdoch's daughter.

Being hosted by a major newspaper appears not to have lifted the standards of comment at Planetim. Blair couldn't help but comment on the Royal North Shore Hospital beat-up, claiming that the hospital chapel had been "de-Jesused".

Aiming to avoid conflict and anger, the Royal North Shore Hospital has instead increased it.

But anger among who? It seems the only angry people are some of Tim Blair's cyber-nazis. Here are some of their rants:

kae replied to kae
Thu 09 Apr 09 (06:45pm)
We want a separate place.
We want you to abide by our rules.
We need to have special concessions because of our religion.
We need special food.
Why don’t you treat us the same as everyone else?
Before anyone bags out Jews and Jewish food requirements, just remember that Jews have never expected KFC, Maccas, et al, you and me, to change to suit them.

Aiming to avoid conflict and anger, the Royal North Shore Hospital has instead increased it.
It’s worse than that.
Why would a person of one faith be offended by seeing the religious symbols of another faith?
The only reason could be that their own faith is intolerant of others.
So, the question is: What is the hospital doing, validating and encouraging intolerant faiths?
Brett_McS of Newcastle (Reply)
Thu 09 Apr 09 (12:30pm)

John E replied to Brett_McS
Thu 09 Apr 09 (02:39pm)
Indeed, Brett.
It actually highlights the deep-rooted insecurity of these other, intolerant faiths.
For if their followers are so secure in their beliefs, they would surely not feel threatened or offended by the religious symbols of other faiths.

Hey, Tim.
On the evening news tonight no mention was made of who might be offended by crosses and bibles. In fact the news reader talked about the move without once mentioning Muslims.
kae (Reply)
Thu 09 Apr 09 (06:39pm)

OK, you know you have screwed up when the Muslims appear more tolerant.
pgrossjr (Reply)
Fri 10 Apr 09 (03:45am)

Yes, these intolerant people who want to support religious separatism, who impose their intolerant religion on us. Who are these nasty devious ugly despicable people with their intolerant religion? Why kind of foreign Middle Eastern force is at work here? What kind of people would support a hospital chapel being "de-Jesused"?

Well, you'd have to have read the hard-copy version of Sydney's Daily Telegraph on Thursday 9 April to know the answer. On page 2, health reporter Kate Sikora writes:

The Australian/Jewish Affairs Council [sic.] supported the hospital, saying more people would be likely to use the chapel.

Bren Carlill, a policy analyst, said some from other religions might be offended.

"The fact that they are willing to go to such lengths to encourage religious communities to worship is great," he said. "There are people from lots of different groups who almost like getting offended - and then there are the other people who don't get offended."

So which nasty evil foreign intolerant separatist group supports such actions and has earned the ire of Tim Blair's buddies for having a hospital chapel "de-Jesused"?

THE JEWS!!!

But don't dare describe Tim Blair as a racist. He doesn't need to be. His commenters to it all for him. Tim just moderates it all.

UPDATE I: In case it matters, Bren Carlill happens not to be Jewish.

UPDATE II: As if to confirm the above, Tim Blair doesn't hesitate to source a story from neo-Nazi Sheik Yer'mami. It's not the first time Blair has used the "Yer'mami News Network".

And what kind of material does Yer'mami publish? Well, his website currently carries this poll:

Are you convinced now that Obama is a Marxist Muslim?

°No way!

°More Marxist than Muslim

°More Muslim than Marxist

°Muslim ueber alles!

Thus far, out of 50 votes, 17 persons have voted Obama is more Marxist than Muslim while another 17 have voted him more Muslim than Marxist. 12 have voted he is Muslim ueber alles. It would be interesting to know which way Tim Blair voted.

And read this extraordinary gushing tribute to Austrian neo-Nazi politician Joerg Haider from Yer'mami. Here's what Ha'aretz has to say about Haider:

He commended the Third Reich's employment policy, called SS members "decent people," compared the Jews' deportation during the war to the expulsion of the German Sudetens and described the extermination camps as "punishment camps."

... he said that "every foreigner, even if he's a criminal, receives more government support than an Austrian pensioner," or "it makes no difference whether it's a Romanian pickpocket or a Socialist finance minister who's taking the money out of your pocket." Or, "did you know that under Socialist rule, a black African with a fashionable suit and a state-of-the art cell phone can sell drugs unhindered?"

What delightful sources the opinion editor of the Daily Telegraph has.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf




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BLOGS/HATEWATCH: There was movement at the station ...

Some readers have advised me that they are rather disturbed by the kind of racist and xenophobic nonsense that I reproduce here from the blogs of the likes of Blair, Bolt, Akerman etc. For the benefit of such readers, I'll be posting the repeated moderating of hate-speech by News Limited employees on this blog.

So go to the Media Mullah blog if you want to read what the Uncle Rupert's Ayatollahs of hate-speech are upto.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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BLOGS: Some more Blair vilification ...

Daily Telegraph logo pre-Tim Blair

Tim Blair continues to poke fun at domestic violence victims, making light of the tragic murder of Aasiya Hassan. And true to form, Blair cannot avoid vilification of entire racial and ethno-religious groups. He can't help but suggest that people of Pakistani and/or Muslim origin be ...

... drag[ed] out of the Stone Age.

It seems that the Daily Telegraph hasn't heard of State and Commonwealth legislation outlawing racial vilification. That's certainly obvious from some of the comments Blair has allowed on his blog ...

Does it ever occur to Muslim Neanderthals that the countries with the highest standards of living, health etc. are those where women have in practice and in law equal rights and opportunities? ...
ann j of Sydney (Reply)
Fri 27 Feb 09 (07:31am)

Back to sensitivity school for you Tim.

Muslims are not of the Stone Age - they are fully paid up representatives of the 7th century.
HRT (Reply)
Fri 27 Feb 09 (07:49am)

Imagine if Blair had written stuff about Chinese leaving the Stone Age? Or of Jewish Neanderthals? He'd be sacked. And rightly so. But in the tabloid world of the Daily Telegraph, some groups aren't protected from vilification.

UPDATE I: Certain comments on Blair's bog are moderated, as this chap discovered ...

Domestic violence is not solely in the domain of one religion or group of people. My father (a virtuous atheist) treated me appallingly.

It would be easy to point at various aspects of his work and cry hypocrite .. he was an Education professor .. but it wasn’t his work that was bad.

I take exception to religious authorities that approve domestic violence, or excuse it. Tragically, there are some that are still in the stone age. [Edited to remove identifying description.]

David Ball of Carramar/Sydney (Reply)

Fri 27 Feb 09 (09:43am)

So you shouldn't identify individuals, but feel free to defame entire groups.

Daily Telegraph logo post-Tim Blair

HATEWATCH: Blair and his buddies poke fun at domestic violence ...

Daily Telegraph blogger and opinion editor Tim Blair just loves to have a good laugh with his regular online buddies. And what could be more worthy of laughs than a woman being murdered, allegedly by her husband in an extreme case of domestic violence?

Sensible people would find domestic violence rather depressing. It happens everywhere and in all communities. Almost always it's men being violent to women.

Some of us spend time campaigning against domestic violence. But for the Daily Telegraph, domestic violence is a source of great laughs. Check out some of the comments moderated and featured on this Tele blogpost:

Abdul-Ghafur: Improve Islam’s image, Woman, or heads will roll!
Albury Shifton
Tue 24 Feb 09 (06:47am)

There’s an idea: Instead of beheading your wife when she’s misbehaving, show yourself as a truly moderate Muslim and throw her out the window instead.
Mikael, Grand Mufti of Denmark
Tue 24 Feb 09 (07:31am)

A woman is murdered in the most gruesome fashion. Her husband is arrested and charged with her murder. Her family and community are mourning. I can only begin to imagine what her kids are going through.

Yes, it really is very funny, Tim.

Then again, I should factor in the possibility that these comments were left by nasty anonymous leftoids determined to make Blair look even more racist than he already is. Pfft. Now that certainly is something worth laughing at.

UPDATE I: Someone has pointed out to me that beheadings have happened in a variety of places. In August 2008, a 31 year old Greek man was found carrying his girlfriend's head after beheading her at a popular tourist resort. No doubt Tim's resident cybernazis will also find a few laughs in this tragedy. Or perhaps they will start poking fun at the Greek Orthodox Church. Who knows?

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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HATEWATCH: Tim Blair denies responsibility for his wacky friends ...

Tim Blair, opinion editor and blogger for the Daily Telegraph, has suddenly decided that he'd better disown the racist and xenophobic attitudes of some of his pals congregating around his bog ... woops ... blog. How so?

Blair is now claiming that persons from that nebulous monolithic group known as “the Left” are deliberately posting racist and hate-filled comments on his blogs. Why? To make Blair look like a nasty racist.

Try not to laugh.

Of course, all this raises some interesting questions – how did these comments make their way onto Blair's blogs in the first place? Doesn’t News Limited have a policy on comments?

Indeed it does. You can read it here. For those with the literacy levels of Blair's fans, I'll simplify the policy for you.

The policy states ...

We can only accept your content though if you comply with the terms and conditions set out below.

Among these conditions is that ...

News will determine, at its discretion, whether to publish (or remove from a site) any of your content ...

... and that ...

News may edit your content in its discretion.

Further, comment must ...

... not breach any law (including laws relating to privacy, intellectual property and defamation) or the rights of any person.

And that presumably includes breaches of laws forbidding racial and other prejudice and vilification.

Now let’s have a look at some comments moderated on Tim Blair’s blog. At 4:04pm on Friday 13 February, Blair allowed this comment through concerning the understandably angry responses of locals to a person arrested for deliberately lighting one of the recent Victorian bushfires:

Just tell the mob he’s a Palestinian. That’ll justify any amount of murder.

It took almost 8 hours for a further comment to be posted condemning this racist and anti-Semitic remark. But why was it allowed on the Tele blog in the first place? And why is it still there?

Of course, racist, murderous, xenophobic and defamatory comments are nothing new to Blair’s Tele blog. On 17 May 2008, Blair awoke at 4:59am to write this blogpost. He then moderated a comment by one “El Cid” at 12:36pm which suggested a ...

... compost solution ...

... would be a good way of dealing with Muslims. The comment is still there on Blair's blog on the Tele website to this day.

The Oz went on the rampage when The Age published an allegedly racist article by Michael Backman. Yet its sister papers are quite happy to host blogs that moderate murderous and racist remarks. The Age suspended Backman’s contributions. Will News Limited suspend or terminate the services of Tim Blair? Or will it wait until it’s hauled before the Australian Communications & Media Authority or the Australian Human Rights Commission? Or until its advertisers decide that supporting a newspaper that promotes racism, bigotry and genocidal thinking may not be such a good idea? And if advertisers desert Sydney's biggest selling newspaper, what impact will this have on News Limited's share price?

But the Tele doesn't seem to care about such factors. hence it actively promotes Blair's blog, encouraging readers to "join the debate". The Tele's editors and owners are clearly quite happy hosting a blog that moderates comments calling for certain groups to be transformed into compost, for others to be murdered, etc etc.

And the in-house lawyers at Nationwide News don't seem too perturbed either. All legal practitioners in New South Wales are required under Clause 176 of the Legal Profession Regulations to complete at least 1 CLE unit on discrimination or OH&S each three years. You'd think at least the lawyers would have advised their client/employer of the importance of establishing a workplace where discrimination is not promoted, let alone fostered.

Still, even Tele readers aren't that stupid. They don't seem to be getting the message. Little wonder most of those congregating at Blair's blog are the same crazy far-Right neo-Nazi crowd (largely outside Australia) that he has attracted all along.

UPDATE I: Tim Blair telephoned me on the evening of 24 February 2009 at around 7:50pm to advise me that I had made an error in my post. he said that the anonymous lefties were leaving nasty comments not on his blog but rather on Andrew Bolt's blog. Which, of course, makes a huge difference to this entire issue, doesn't it. When I asked about the comment moderated on his blog regarding the murder of Palestinians, Blair said:

I suspect that was left by a leftwing troll.

So it seems Bolt isn't the only one who has suddenly discovered that sometimes his regular fans mysteriously morph into "leftwing trolls". Blair also refused to advise on who actually moderated the comments appearing on his blog.

HATEWATCH: A great moment from Tim Blair's blog - Palestinians deserve to be murdered ...

You can always rely on Tim Blair's cyber-friends to come up with poor taste, murderous, racist and/or bigoted nonsense. In announcing the arrest of a 39 year old in relation to alleged acts of arson leading to at least one of the Victorian bushfires, Blair and his colleagues at the Daily Telegraph allowed this comment to be posted:

Just tell the mob he’s a Palestinian. That’ll justify any amount of murder.
dowp
Fri 13 Feb 09 (04:04pm)

The comment relates to a mob which assembled outside the police station where the man was being apprehended. Charming stuff.


UPDATE I: A further comment promotes the "forest jihad" thesis that senior Tele columnist Piers Akerman was suggesting earlier in the week ...

Reminds one of this from last year.
Gorewell
Sat 14 Feb 09 (10:19am)

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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HATEWATCH: Yet even more great moments from Tim Blair's News Ltd blog ...

The Abu Hamza pseudo-controversy has provided the nazified imbeciles congregating around the News Limited blob ... woops ... blog of Tim Blair with further inspiration for laughably inane comment. Here are some excerpts. Try not to laugh too hard.

Barak Obama eating a hamburger (not a Sea Kitten, note) prepared by the wife of a Muslim cleric - in an unforgivable affront to the Jewish and Christian faiths! No! Just the Jewish one. Wait! Which one doesn’t eat ham again? Oh yeah, the Muslims.
bill of sydney
Fri 23 Jan 09 (05:28am)

What the ...? And for all you interfaith buffs, shove this up your halal/kosher ham sandwich!

dowp replied to bill
Fri 23 Jan 09 (06:59pm)

Er BIll. Jews don’t eat ham, bacon, pork or other pig-based ingredients. Not if they’re religious anyway.

Just ONE of the religious obligations MoHAMmed stole from the Jews to try to convert them to Islam.

Don’t you know anything?

But this isn't just about religion. It's also about colour. People with white skin clearly have more conscience ...

Speaking of contex, in the video of the audience there are many ‘non-Anglo’ faces. They all look expressionless as they listen to the hateful Imam - apparently drinking in the message obediently.
But there is one ‘Anglo’ and he has a smirk [of embarrassment?] on his face. He seems to be half looking to see how he should react to the teaching to beat his wife.
Which of these reactions shows assimilation to the Australian culture?
Barrie (Reply)
Fri 23 Jan 09 (08:33am)

Moving onto page 2, some people are wondering why conservatives aren't stupid enough to buy into this tabloid tripe ...

Where are our cultural commentators, Greer of the Long Face and John Pilchard, on this; and, more importantly, where is Malcolm Turnbull, every conservative think tank spokesman and people elected by half of Australian voters to speak stridently against those things that are inimical to our way of life?
Mick Gold Coast QLD of Gold Coast QLD (Reply)
Fri 23 Jan 09 (09:07am)

Even after someone pointed out that even Muslims have actively condemned any hint of condoning domestic violence, the usual cultural nuance and sophistication returns ...

John E replied to ann j
Fri 23 Jan 09 (01:33pm)

The mere fact that the video is 4-5 years old, and yet they still broadcasted it - knowing full well the filth that was contained on it, and the likely reaction by the public - means that the Muslims who produced it deserve every bit of the condemnation that rightly flows their way.

I’d like to think - and certainly hope - that this line of thinking is, in fact, limited to a bunch of fringe crazies within the Muslim religion, but there appears to be very little objective evidence that that is the case.

Meanwhile, it's time to bring in extraneous leftwing ideas like human rights ...

So according to this Muslim cleric it’s OK for Muslim men to beat their wives so long as they don’t draw blood or create bruises.

Then how come other Muslims complain that terrorist suspects were tortured at Guantanamo Bay ? Surely it’s not torture ? Surely it’s just a bit of harmless wife-beating ?

Men can hit there innocent wives but the US can’t interrogate terrorist suspects ?
Bruce Smith (Reply)
Fri 23 Jan 09 (01:37pm)

I look forward to comments from "Augustus", "tim blair" and the anonymous chap from Normanhurst to this post. Enjoy!

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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