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1/ Regarding claims made by Jamaati and Zakir Naik-linked Islamists in India’s Supreme Court about me and @meforum, here’s a thread giving a quick run-down of the actual facts. https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/out-of-29-cr-1-cr-recieved-from-foreign-links-sudarshan-tv-cherry-picking-facts-zakat-foundation-of-india-files-intervention-application @abhashankar1 @SudarshanNewsTV @SureshChavhanke @axidentaljourno @DebayanDictum
2/ The attacks come from the Zakat Foundation of India (ZFI). We don’t know Sudarshan News, and have never spoken with them before. So I won’t address their original claims; but it’s worth rebutting the disinformation put out by ZFI in its response.
3/ Claim: *Al-Medina Trust is a “miniscule” charity that “only helps the poor and needy.”* No, this UK charity that is funding ZFI has almost £2 million (well over 18 crore) in the bank. Here are its most recent accounts, filed with UK Charity Commission https://docdro.id/GJ1Wl8f
4/ In fact, Medina Trust is a serious Jamaat-e-Islami charity. It shares trustees with terror-tied Muslim Aid (which works with Al Khidmat, the Hizbul Mujahideen-tied ‘charitable arm’ of Jamaat in Pakistan) as well as Islamic Foundation, the main Jamaati thinktank in Europe.
5/ Medina Trust trustees include Farooq Murad, son of Khurram Murad, who led both Bangladeshi and Pakistani branches of JI; Manazir Ahsan, who helped coordinate Islamist riots in the UK against novelist Salman Rushdie; ...
6/ ... and Khurshid Ahmad, a senior Pakistani JI leader who has described the Taliban as “refulgent and splendid” and has written about the “implication of Europe’s being in the clasp of Jews.” http://standforpeace.org.uk/four-ways-to-fight-extremism/
7/ Claim: *Muslim Aid would have been banned in the UK were it a terrorist organization.* No. Weak UK govt has long refused to ban terror-tied charities, preferring instead to chastise publicly and then offer ‘guidance’ to help charities get back on track.
8/ e.g. Interpal is a designated terrorist organization in the U.S. and elsewhere, because of its open support for Hamas. And yet it remains a registered charity in the UK.
9/ Also worth pointing out that Muslim Aid doesn’t deny terrorist links. It has admitted to funding charities tied to terror in the past. See our original article: https://www.meforum.org/61439/india-must-shut-down-terror-linked-muslim-aid
10/ Claim: *ZFI’s Jafer Qureshi resigned from Zakir Naik’s companies after he “came to know that Govt of India had censured the man.”* More deliberate disinformation. In fact:
11/ The Al Fouz Trust, of which Qureshi is chairman, is today registered to the *same address* as Zakir Naik’s companies’ currently registered addresses. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06780443
12/ The founder of Al Fouz Trust, Mustasam Abbasi (who still claims to be involved the charity) also currently describes himself as a ‘director’ of Zakir Naik’s Peace TV. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mustasam-abbasi-1724b316/
13/ Qureshi himself still claims to remain a member of the board of trustees of Zakir Naik's Peace TV in his Al Fouz Trust bio. http://www.alfouztrust.org.uk/governance.php
13/ Finally, denouncing us for “Islamophobia” is inane. Far too often, it’s used by Islamists to suppress criticism of their extremism. See discussion in my recent NPR interview: https://www.meforum.org/61473/sam-westrop-on-islam-islamism-and-islamophobia
Moreover, this is not a tangible counterpoint to concrete accusations.
Moreover, this is not a tangible counterpoint to concrete accusations.
14/ That said, anti-Muslim hatred and violence is of course real, and sometimes deadly. In fact, reformist Muslims are our most important ally. As the @meforum has always said: radical Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution.
