Thread by @fahadansari

Thread: The Sunday Telegraph has published a story aimed at pressuring @ManchesterUP to not publish a book about the politics of condemnation. The instigators of the campaign are counter-extremism careerists @CommissionCE and @QuilliamOrg, who have not actually read the book.

In the book, @AsimCP has collated essays from a number of writers discussing society’s expectations of what is an ‘appropriate’ response to acts of political violence from innocent people of colour unconnected with the perpetrators except for similarities of race or religion.

According to @ToubeDavid at @QuilliamOrg this was a "slap in the face" for the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing. His colleague @HarisRafiq said the book gave @UK_CAGE "a veneer of academic respectability".

As one contributor Yassir Morsi said, @ManchesterUP is being unfairly publicly pressured by counter-extremism careerists to condemn any links to terrorism for publishing a book on the topic of the unfair pressures of having to publicly condemn any links to terrorism.

That this attempt to stifle freedom of speech and academic thought comes from @ToubeDavid who is connected to an Islamophobic blog that proudly displays the quote, "Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear", only enhances the irony.

It was also amusing to see @HarasRafiq complain of 'academic respectability' after he co-authored a report described by @DrEllaC as “a case study in bad science: riddled with errors, inconsistencies, a glaring lack of transparency, sweeping claims and gross generalisations".

For more on this highly discredited report by @HarasRafiq at @QuilliamOrg, see policinginsight.com/features/analy…

By way of contrast, the book edited by @AsimCP went through an extensive peer-review process which included comments and judgment from no less than 3 subject experts.

I am proud to have contributed a chapter to such an important book.

@HarasRafiq, however, was "particularly insulted" by this because I have written for @UK_CAGE questioning the fairness of extraditing Abid Naseer to the US over allegations of a bomb plot in Manchester.

I wonder whether @HarasRafiq realises that the Prime Minister @BorisJohnson, on whose Community Engagement Forum he serves, has campaigned against the UK-US extradition treaty for years, even where the cases involve terror suspects accused of crimes allegedly committed in the UK.

Does he realise that the current Foreign Secretary @DominicRaab also vigorously campaigned against the extradition arrangements with the US describing them as "a stain" on the British traditions of respect for "principles such as habeus corpus and the presumption of innocence"?

Perhaps he has forgotten that tens of thousands of members of the British public, and hundreds of lawyers and politicians from all parties, have opposed the extradition arrangements as a means of subcontracting our criminal justice system to the US.

Or was it the fact that my questioning the fairness of the extradition to the US was published by @UK_CAGE ?

Perhaps he would prefer such criticism to be made in a non-Islamic space. So here is something I wrote for the Guardian in 2011.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

What is 'particularly insulting' is that the CVE careerists are seeking to weaponise the sensitivities of the victims of the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 by trying to censor me for legitimate criticisms made of the extradition of a man accused of an unrelated plot in 2009.

When I asked the Telegraph journalist what was the link between Naseer and the Arena attack, his reply was simple: “they were both targeting Manchester”. Such logic would also lead to the rather disturbing conclusion that there is a link between Hitler, the IRA, al-Qaeda & ISIS.

Prior to submitting my chapter, I admit that I felt a sense of anxiety that it might lead to attacks by racists who hold Muslim lawyers to a standard not expected of lawyers of other faiths and none. I had my draft reviewed by several other lawyers. Was it really worth it?

As I detail in the chapter, I was once almost denied an offer of employment because of this letter I wrote to the Law Society Gazette calling for Abu Qatada to be prosecuted rather than continuing to detain him without trial lawgazette.co.uk/news/falling-s…

I also discuss how unknown to me, a Local Authority claimed in the High Court that a mother had an extremist mindset because she tried to instruct me, someone linked to @UK_CAGE and @hhugscharity, organisations that many other non-Muslim lawyers work with on a regular basis.

There are numerous other examples of the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which Muslim lawyers representing those accused of terrorism are expected to behave and not to behave, in a manner not required of other lawyers.

All of this demonstrates why @AsimCP's book 'I Refuse to Condemn: Resisting racism in times of national security' is desperately needed in the times we live in. And it is credit to @ManchesterUP that they have come out in defence of the book despite the pressure upon them.

The book is currently available for pre-order and following the Telegraph article today, @ManchesterUP has kindly provided a discount code for 50% off all orders until August.

Simply enter 'resistracism'.

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526151469/