Parliament Caves In Over Film Screening
After Threats From Lord Ahmed
January 27, 2009 by Lee Hancock
Filed under National News
Another nail in the coffin of British free speech was well and truly hammered in today after it was revealed that a proposed screening of the film “Fitna” in the House of Lords was called off after Muslim peer Lord Ahmed threatened to mobilise 10,000 Muslims if the film was shown.
A female member of the Lords had planned to invite the director of the film, Dutch politician Geert Wilders, to the conference room in the House of Lords, where his film “Fitna” would be shown to invited colleagues and the issues the film raised debated.
“Fitna” is of course the short but powerful film that looks at the reality behind the establishment’s espousal of Islam as a “religion of peace.” For daring to challenge current orthodoxy, Wilders is currently facing prison in Holland for his statements about Islam.
The screening of the film was due to take place this Thursday. And it was after the invitations were sent out that Lord Ahmed swung into action. He called a meeting with the government chief whip and the leader of the House, together with representatives of the Muslim Council of Britain and the British Muslim Forum.
At the meeting, Ahmed threatened to mobilise 10,000 Muslims to prevent Wilders from entering the House and said that he would take the organiser of the event to court.
Thanks to Ahmed’s astonishing bully-boy tactics, the decision was taken last Friday to cancel the screening of the film. Ahmed called his campaign of threats and intimidation “a victory for the Muslim community.”
Despite seeming to advocate force to secure his political aims, Lord Ahmed is routinely touted as the face of moderate Islam in the UK. Born Nazir Ahmed in Pakistan, Labour member Lord Ahmed became the first Muslim life peer in 1998, where he took his oath on the Koran instead of the Bible. In 2007, upon hearing of the knighting of Salaman Rushdie, he responded by saying that he was appalled and claimed that Rushdie had “blood on his hands.”
Ahmed’s fury that the House of Lords has been used to host an “extremist” event is somewhat ironic as he himself courted controversy in 2005 over his choice of invited guest when he hosted a book launch by anti-Semitic author Israel Shamir.
Ahmed is also one of the founders of The World Forum, an organisation which was set up to “promote world peace in the aftermath of 9/11 with an effort to build bridges of understanding between the Muslim world and the West by reviving a tradition of dialogue between people, cultures and civilizations based on tolerance.”
His notion of understanding and dialogue seem to differ sharply from this flowery prose. It seems that dialogue is to be suppressed if it falls foul of Ahmed’s narrow world view and any understanding seems to be on the proviso that people must understand that he can call in the heavy mob if his demands are not met.
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