Bartholomew's Notes

A number of Nigerian websites have noted the front cover of a magazine called Yes! International (17 September 2012), announcing an interview in which Helen Ukpabio “Exposes T.B. Joshua”. Subheadings promise details about “the demons that give him money” and “why his predictions should not be believed”, as well as “more, much more”. The interview does not appear on the magazine’s website, so it’s impossible to tell whether the interview focuses on Joshua or whether the headline refers to statements made in passing from a more wide-ranging piece.

Neither Ukpabio nor Joshua are uplifting characters to have to ponder.Ukpabio is known for her aggressive fear-mongering over the existence of child-witches; as well as deploying lawfare, she has sent church members to disrupt a conference on the problem of child-witch stigmatisation, and attempted to shut down a hostel for children which she claimed was being run by a “wizard“. Critics – including this blog – have also been subjected to crude abuse on a website created by her webmaster and endorsed by her.

Joshua, meanwhile, makes extravagant claims to supernatural powers of prophecy in relation to global and African news events. A vague reference to the death of a president in Africa earlier this year preceded the demise of President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi; Mutharika knew of the prediction, and it is perhaps possible that it had a psychosomatic effect on him. However, in most cases Joshua’s supposed power is demonstrated through heavily-edited videos promoted after particular incidents; T.B. Joshua Watch shows that deceptive editing methods are employed.

Joshua is a more powerful figure than Ukpabio. Forbes names him as one of the “The Five Richest Pastors In Nigeria“, and his followers include politicians; a report last year in the Zimbabwe NewsDay stated that:

A number of senior African politicians and businesspeople have visited the popular Nigerian prophet including suspended Zanu PF legislator Tracey Mutinhiri, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Zifa president Cuthbert Dube, former South African president Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Malawian Vice-President [now President] Joyce Banda.

However, Joshua also sits somewhat apart from other Nigerian pastors; in 2002,  Charisma magazine reported that

Pastors of Nigeria’s largest churches say Joshua mixes Christianity with occult practices. During a leadership summit held near Lagos in July, they firmly denounced him while discussing the issue with a group of Americans that included theologian C. Peter Wagner, Colorado pastor Ted Haggard and prayer leader Chuck Pierce.

…The summit was held at the world’s largest church building, Winner’s Chapel in Ota, pastored by Bishop David Oyedepo…. The Nigerian leaders included Oyedepo; Mike Okonkwo, head of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria; Enoch Adeboye, general overseer of the fast-growing Redeemed Christian Church of God; and Ayo Oritsejafor, pastor of the 26,000-member Word of Life Bible Church in Warri.

In this context, Ukpabio’s position on Joshua simply follows the majority consensus.

Charisma also noted that Joshua does have some international links:

…several prominent charismatic leaders have visited Joshua’s compound and returned with favorable impressions.

These include Canadian renewal leader John Arnott, Pittsburgh pastor Joseph Garlington, Louisiana evangelist Marvin Gorman and New Zealand minister Bill Subritzky.

…Arnott also noted that a South African evangelist, Kobus van Rensburg–who has been heavily influenced by Joshua–has established a healing center in the town of Stilfontein, near Johannesburg. This month, van Rensburg will be speaking at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, which Arnott pastors.

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From the website of the Sovereign Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta (SHOSJ):

Past Grand Masters

…Blessed Peter Gerard-Abbott: Master-French,1087-1120

…Joseph Frendo Cumbo: Grand Master-Maltese, 1997-2006

Nicholas Papanicolaou: Grand Master-Greek,2006-2011-*Disassociated

Adrian Busietta: Grand Master-Maltese, 2011-

* The Order and its Members in vast Majority have dissociated themselves from the leadership / grand master-ship of Chev. Nicholas Papanicolaou for grave reasons already explained in detail to him by correspondence, after due warnings and requests for his resignation

The “grave reasons” for the split with Papanicolaou are not explained. However, as I’ve previously noted, Papanicolaou has links with controversial figures on the US Christian Right; none other than Gen “Jerry” Boykin was installed as the Order’s Grand Chancellor, and in 2010 the two men sent out an aggressively anti-Muslim fundraising letter in the Order’s name:

The Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security recently swore in two devout Muslims in senior posts…. Was it not “Devout Muslim men” that flew planes into U.S. buildings 9 years ago? Was it not a Devout Muslim who killed 14 at Fort Hood?

…Read Sura 18:21 and you will know WHY Muslims insist on building a mosque over Ground Zero…

Your DONATION to the KNIGHTS will directly go to our global effort to inform, put pressure on legislators, media ads, communication with leaders, and much more to heighten the awareness of the grave danger that is confronting us and the United States Constitution…against Sharia Law.

Last October, the two men held an inauguration ceremony for the Order on Rhodes, at which “friend of the English Defence League” Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was made a “Dame”.

Boykin is absent from the new SHOSJ website (which was created in February), as is Rick Joyner, who was previously made “Deputy Member of the Supreme Council” (Joyner  claims that his books are in part responsible for a “spiritual renewal” in the Order). However, all three men continue in their roles on an older website, where the Order is referred to as the “Knights Hospitallers of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta, the Ecumenical Order” (OSJ). As with the SHOSJ website, the OSJ website also carries a list of Grand Masters; until recently, Busietta was included as having been in charge “pro tem” during 2006, which was before Papanicolaou took over, although his name no longer appears anywhere.

A blog post about the split appeared in Swedish a few months ago, but is no longer available; the author suggested that some European members had become unhappy about the direction which the Order was taking. It certainly seemed to me strange that an organisation which exists to promote charitable activities would want to become embroiled in extreme anti-Islam polemics and identified with Joyner’s Christian Right form of neo-Pentecostalism. However, the OSJ has retained its original European “Royal Protector”, Enrique de Borbon y Garcia-Lobez, while the SHOSJ’s Royal Protectors are “HIRH Sandor Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Tuscany and HIRH Herta Margarete Habsburg Lothringen, Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Tuscany”.

Some details about Busietta have appeared in the Malta Independent:

Chevalier Adrian Busietta has been one of Malta’s leading businessmen and entrepreneurs for the last five decades, a span of time in which he experienced the tenure of no less than six Prime Ministers.

…In later years he has concentrated more on his very active role within the Knights of St John of Jerusalem Ecumenical Order, again a role that has brought him into contact with a great number of international personalities including international pop stars Sir Cliff Richard and Mike Reed, as well as a number of kings and princes who are members of the Order.

A picture of Cliff in his gown can be seen here.

It should be borne in mind that both Busietta’s SHOSJ and Papanicolaou’s OSJ are both separate from the exclusively Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), which is the organisation that most people think of when the name of the “Knights of Malta” is mentioned. Another report in the Malta Independent concludes with the notice that

…it was again reiterated that the Embassy of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, known also as The Order of Malta, wishes to inform the general public that it has no connection with the organisation which calls itself the “Knights Hospitallers of the Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta – The Ecumenical Order”.

This organisation has recently been given coverage in connection with the fact that the renowned singer Cliff Richard has been made a member of this organisation.

It is pertinent to note that the organisation in question is not recognised by the Republic of Malta or by the Holy See.

I discussed competing claims about the historical background here. Last year, SMOM lost a trademark case against the OSJ in Florida. Despite SMOM’s objection to “ecumenical” rivals, and its exclusive recognition by the Vatican, SHOSJ has as its Spiritual Protector a Roman Catholic Cardinal, Sergio Sebastiani.

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From the Guardian:

A number of rightwing British activists have publicly praised mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik – one describing him as a “role model” – since the Norwegian extremist was sentenced.

The report goes on to note a petition on behalf of Breivik by “Kickboxer Darren Cliff”. Further:

Another Breivik admirer, Nick Greger – who, along with EDL founder member Paul Ray, runs Order 777, which claims to bring together Christian resistance movements – wrote on Facebook that the Norwegian deserved a medal “for the groundbreaking performance to blow up his Marxist traitor government building”.

…Greger, a German former neo-Nazi, lives in Malta as does Ray, who reportedly fled the UK fearing arrest for inciting racial hatred.

I noted Greger’s “Order 777” in a post in April, following a reference in the Daily Telegraph. I added further details in June, when Greger uploaded a video to his “madnick77” Youtube account vilifying Breivik’s victims and describing Breivik as “Commander Anders Breivik”. There is no evidence that anyone besides Greger is a member of “Order 777”, and a comment left by Greger below the video suggests a difference of opinion with Ray:

This video kinda ruins everything Paul said to the norwegian police, doesn’t it? – flasKamel

no it dosent as the video is just a information of what the media doesn not tell the public and we just support that people have to get access to all informations surrounding breiviks motivation.by the way,paul rays opinions are paul rays opinions.me myself i did never hide that those people in utoya havent just been innocent kids playing football in a summer camp and thats the point. – madnick77

Greger’s support for Breivik was also noted by Dagbladet, which also explicitly claims that Greger and Ray have “broken”.

Ray, by contrast, has condemned the killings, and he complains bitterly of news reports speculating (incorrectly) that he may have been Breivik’s supposed mentor “Richard the Lionhearted”. Indeed, much of Ray’s blog is now concerned with conspiracy theories about the murders, which he  attempts to link to former elements within the EDL with whom he has fallen out.

However, Ray’s residence on Malta is not due to his having “fled the UK fearing arrest for inciting racial hatred”, and it’s not even clear that he still lives there. Ray did flee to the USA in 2007 when the police took an interest in statements on his blog, but the matter was eventually resolved without charges being brought; for a time during this period, Ray enjoyed some support as a “free speech martyr”, although much of that melted away when comments he had made offering (non-racialist) support for the BNP came to light.

The Guardian continues:

Hope Not Hate, an anti-extremist group, said the sentiments of a small number of extremists helped to underline concern that the UK was “not immune” to a Breivik-style attack… Hope Not Hate has now set up a monitoring unit to track counter-jihadist activists that they hope will work as an “early warning system” to help identify potentially dangerous extremists.

Hope Not Hate produced a report on subject in April, which turned out to be problematic and had to be revised. The organisation also has a problem in that one of its trustees, Tehmina Kazi, is very happy to work with a thug who recently wrote a gun massacre fantasy.

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From the Guardian:

A lawyer representing the man who accused a Pakistani Christian girl of blasphemy has said that if she is not convicted, Muslims could “take the law into their own hands”.

Rao Abdur Raheem cited the example of Mumtaz Qadri, the man who last year shot dead a politician who had called for reform of the much-abused blasphemy law.

…Raheem said he had taken on the case for free because he was convinced that Masih should be punished. “This girl is guilty. If the state overrides the court, then God will get a person to do the job,” he said.

I’ve written about Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, and their baleful consequences, previously. The current case, however, is particularly egregious; the accused girl, Rimsha Masih, reportedly has a learning disability. Raheem, however, is unconcerned about this: her medical assessement, he claims, was “illegal” and should not be taken into consideration.

In December 2010, Raheem created a self-described “lawyers’ forum”, called the Movement to Protect the Dignity of the Prophet; according to the New York Times, the group produced a petition in support of Qadri which was signed by a 1,000 lawyers in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Members of the group also reportedly “greeted Mr. Qadri’s… court appearances by throwing rose petals”. The NY Times noted:

…The lawyers’ stance is perhaps just the most glaring expression of what has become a deep generational divide tearing at the fabric of Pakistani society, and of the broad influence of religious conservatism — and even militancy — that now exists among the educated middle class.

They are often described as the Zia generation: Pakistanis who have come of age since the 1980s, when the military dictator, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, began to promote Islam in public education and to use it as a political tool to unify this young and insecure nation.

Raheem has also turned his attention to the internet and the US embassy; the Express Tribune reported in May that:

Margalla police station registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Facebook and three other websites under sections 295-A and 298-A of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) on the directions of Additional Sessions Judge Kamran Basharat Mufti. The application had been submitted by the Namoos-e-Risalat Lawyers Forum (NRLF).

One of the complainants, Advocate Rao Abdur Rahim, told The Express Tribune that they had been informed in July 2011 that Facebook and a few other websites had been posting ‘blasphemous’ posts on their websites and the material was being uploaded from inside Pakistan.

…”We gave three applications: one against Payam TV for telecasting a movie ‘Yousaf’, one against Facebook and three other websites and one against the US embassy in Islamabad for organising a gathering of gays and lesbians,” the petitioner said.

Yousaf is actually an Urdu television serial, telling the Koranic version of the story of the Biblical Joseph. Episodes can be found on YouTube.

Raheem has a Facebook page, consisting for the most part of jpegs of urdu documents. His group also has a Facebook page, under the spelling “Namos E Risalat Lawyers“, where a booklet in support of Pakistan’s blasphemy law has been posted. Hypocritically, both pages carry material condemning the violence of militant Buddhist monks in Burma (a subject I looked at here).

There’s also a YouTube channel related to the group, under the name “nrlfp50” (The booklet on the group’s Facebook page includes a reference to a website, “nrlfp.com”, which is currently defunct). One of the videos posted is footage of a rally in support of the murderer Qadri:

UPDATE (2 September): Rimsha had been handed over to the police by a local imam; the AFP reported on 24 August:

Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti, the imam of the mosque in the Islamabad suburb of Mehrabad, insisted he had saved the girl, Rimsha, from mob violence by handing her to police but said the incident arose because Muslims had not stopped local Christians’ “anti-Islam activities” earlier.

Yesterday, it was reported that Chishti “has called for the law to be followed to its conclusion, even if that means the girl is executed”. However, his enthusiasm for having alleged blasphemers executed may perhaps now have cooled somewhat:

Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti appeared in court on Sunday after witnesses claimed to have seen him adding pages of the Qur’an to a bag of ashes Rimsha Masih had been carrying away for disposal last month in order to strengthen the case against her.

…Tahir Naveed Chaudhry from the All Pakistan Minority Committee said it had always maintained that evidence was planted on her.

“And now it is proved that the whole story was only designed to dislocate the Christian people,” he said. “He must be prosecuted under the blasphemy law as it will set a precedent against anyone else who tries to misuse that law.”

Rao’s bloodlust, though, remains undiminished:

“Our case is totally separate from the case against Chishti,” he said. “The man who accused him of adding pages from the Qur’an also confirmed that Rimsha burned a book containing verses from the Qur’an.”

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News from Iran, via Robert Tait at the Daily Telegraph:

…A fundamentalist MP, Mohammad Ali Asfenani, has said Iran has a religious obligation to legally recognise the weddings of girls as young as nine.

“As some people may not comply with our current Islamic legal system, we must regard nine as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married,” Mr Asfenani, chairman of the parliamentary legal and judiciary committee, told Khabar Online. “To do otherwise would be to contradict and challenge Islamic Sharia law.”

Presumably, “fundamentalist” means “hardliner”, although the use of the term here is so opaque as to be pointless.

The quote attributed to Isfenani was noted even before the Telegraph article. However, an organisation called the  Women Living Under Muslim Laws Solidarity Network suggests reason for caution:

Dear all,

Recently, a petition generated by thepetitionsite.com claiming that the “Iranian government is legalizing marriage for under 10-year olds” has been spreading widely. I would like to bring it to your attention that the petition is neither accurate nor credible. Our trusted Iranian colleagues have consulted Farsi media agencies and all their contacts and confirmed that the information is incorrect and misleading. Furthermore , it was confirmed that there is no such statement or anything similar in the Majlis. There is only a PANEL DISCUSSION on early marriage which was published by a News Agency Khabar Online,
(http://www.khabaronline.ir/detail/232286/society/social-damage).

The MP, Mohammad Ali Isfenani, who was quoted or rather misquoted in the petition as saying “We must regard nine as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married” has in fact said the contrary. MP Isfenani’s official stance is in fact against early marriage and he actually defends the law that prohibits early marriage in Iran.

The petition has already attracted over 50, 000 signatories. It is important that we bring this to the attention of our respective networkers. Such fabrications/propaganda can undermine the integrity of our work and discredit our fight in defending the rights of girls and women in Iran and beyond!

Thank you for your support!

The panel discussion itself can be seen here; unfortunately, Google Translate is of very limited value, but the discussants appear to agree that early marriage is undesirable. Input from anyone with knowledge of Farsi would be gratefully received.

Meanwhile, a recent post by Alex Shams, who is Co-Editor of Ajam Media Collective, suggests that Tait and the Telegraph have form when it comes to inaccurate reporting on Iran:

…On August 20, Robert Tait published a bizarrely contradictory article entitled “Anger as Iran bans women from universities” in The Telegraph that suggests that women in Iran will be hereto banned from universities because of the worries of “senior clerics.” The piece’s subtitle immediately contradicts the inflammatory title, reversing the claim that women have been banned “from universities” by explaining that “female students in Iran have been barred from more than 70 university degree courses in an officially-approved act of sex-discrimination.” Tait proceeds to contradict himself again in the first paragraph, where he further explains that 36 universities had decided of their own accord to ban entrance to women in 77 undergraduate-level courses.

This article is the most recent in a series of inaccurate, misleading, and irresponsible articles about Iranian women and the fight for women’s rights in Iran published by The Telegraph. This is the same paper that last spring completely fabricated a story about Iranian women training to be “ninja assassins” to defend their country against invasion (they were actually just practitioners of the Japanese martial art in their local dojo, without murderous intent)…

Which senior clerics? where? …To say that “senior clerics in Iran think xyz” is about as precise as saying “politicians in America think xyz,” which is to say that it means about nothing.

I looked at the general issue of early marriage in the Islamic world recently here and here.

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Glenn Beck’s End-Times Prophet Joel Richardson responds to my recent post deunking his claim on WND that “51 million” girls under the age of ten are being married to Muslim men in an “epidemic across the Muslim world”:

Personally, it is largely irrelevant to my primary point if it is 51 million or 1 million. Either way, its a problem, that any two vaguely morally inclined people could agree on. Which is why your article is so worrying and why SheikYermami has a somewhat valid point. I never stated a number. I only relayed what CNN stated. Again, your contention is not with me, but with CNN. My contention is with what you choose to emphasize and what you choose to overlook.

The CNN report, by Samuel Burke, cites the figure of “51 million” child marriages worldwide; Richardson conflates this with the number of such marriages in the Muslim world, and then extrapolates evidence from Yemen and Afghanistan to make his “epidemic” claim. However, Burke’s claim itself wasn’t quite accurate: the “51 million” figure is derived from worldwide Demographic and Health Surveys for marriages between the ages of 15 to 19, while Burke gives the impression that it refers to younger girls.

Richardson was too lazy to check Burke’s source, despite presumably being paid by WND for his writing.  I was able to find the relevant documentation in five minutes, despite not being paid by anyone (or living off donations from a “ministry”, for that matter). Apparently that does not mean I am more industrious or careful than Richardson – rather, it means that it is “somewhat valid” for Werner Reimann (SheikYermami) to claim that I am supporter of paedophilia who will perhaps end up “in a cell”. What should we infer from this, other than that Richardson is apparently OK with deploying paedo-smears?

Further:

Your failure to at knowledge [sic] the legitimacy of my primary point, which is that in all of the earth, the history, the example, that Mohammed left behind for his followers, is the primary source of religiously sanctioned pedophilia. This is an extremely important issue. To ignore this, while nitpicking data, in my opinion is revealing, Richard.

Richardson doesn’t care a damn for truth or falsity: because child marriage is a real problem, challenging inaccurate data about it is apparently blameworthy. It doesn’t matter that he’s misled his readers: the data ought to be correct because of what he thinks Muslims ought to believe and how he expects them to behave. Even if they don’t.

I should clarify that I don’t rule out the possibility that some Islamic ideologues might seek to justify child marriage by referring to the example of Muhammad. However, while this would certainly hamper efforts to end the practice, such a self-conscious rationalisation does not appear to be the main reason why early marriage occurs: those who have studied the subject (in particular, the International Center for Research on Women) highlight factors such as gender roles and a lack of alternatives; the value of virginity and fears about premarital sexual activity; marriage alliances and transactions; and poverty. This is why the problem appears to be worst in Afghanistan and Yemen.

Such factors are also cited in a recent piece in the Daily Telegraph by Robert Tait, noting an upsurge of child marriage Iran:

An Iranian NGO, the Society For Protecting The Rights of The Child, said 43,459 girls aged under 15 had married in 2009, compared with 33,383 three years previously. In 2010, 716 girls younger than 10 had wed, up from 449 the previous year, according to the organisation.

Its spokesman, Farshid Yazdani, blamed deepening poverty for the development, which he said was more common in socially backward rural areas often afflicted with high levels of illiteracy and drug addiction.

“Financial poverty of the families leads to children’s marriages. However, cultural poverty and ignorance is also an element,” Mr Yazdani told the semi-official Mehr news agency.

Of course, this context does not mean that we should overlook why the Iranian authorities have failed to act, and the report also suggests a religious factor:

The statistics will fuel criticism that Iran’s Islamic legal code allows children, especially girls, to be married at an inappropriately early age.

While Sharia law states that females can be married as young as nine, a 2002 ruling by the powerful Expediency Council laid down that girls below 13 and boys younger than 15 could only wed with their father’s consent and the permission of a court.

The Society For Protecting The Rights of The Child has highlighted a real problem – but the practice does not appear to be normative.

This is not the first time that I’ve documented Richardson’s sloppiness: in 2008 he claimed that the backdrop to Obama’s podium at his nomination acceptance speech was based on a piece of classical architecture described in the Book of Revelation as the “Throne of Satan” (it wasn’t, and Richardson backed down by claiming that he didn’t really mean it); prior to that, he relied on a  typeset version of a fifteenth-century manuscript to make the palaeographical argument that the word “666” in the Book of Revelation is in fact the Arabic for “In the Name of Allah”.

UPDATE: I’ve edited the above to remove some extra discussion of the Telegraph article. I’ve now posted this in a separate entry.

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Mark Goodacre’s NT Blog has the details:

I commented yesterday on the error-laden obituary of Marvin Meyer in The Telegraph.  It turns out that the errors are not the worst of it.  Chunks of the piece have been plagiarized.

Meyer’s specialism was Gnosticism, and the errors in the obituary include the false claim that “The Gospel of Mary suggests a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene”.

Particularly egregiously, the plagiarism includes sentences lifted from Wikipedia. Goodacre adds:

I think that it is disgraceful that The Telegraph‘s obituary of Marvin Meyer is a patchwork of passages plagiarized from different electronic articles and I would like to suggest that they acknowledge what they have done, issuing a full apology, and replacing the plagiarized piece with something that appropriately honours Professor Meyer’s memory.

Indeed.

This is particularly shocking given that the Telegraph‘s obituaries have a reputation for being the best in the business, thanks to a distinctive approach developed in the 1980s and 1990s by the late Hugh Massingberd, who died in 2007. Massinberd’s own obituary in the New York Times noted his reputation as “the father of the modern British obituary”:

Mr. Massingberd transformed the paper’s obituaries from ponderous, sycophantic eulogies into mordant, warts-and-all profiles of the delectable departed…

In Mr. Massingberd’s hands the newspaper obituary became unabashed entertainment, and the page attracted a passionate following that endures to this day. It also helped to set a benchmark for newspapers throughout Britain, where obituaries are now far more irreverent, more editorial and more prurient than their American counterparts.

…There was this much-quoted line… from 1988, which appeared in The Daily Telegraph’s obituary of John Allegro. A once-renowned scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Mr. Allegro later advanced a theory that Judaism and Christianity were the products of an ancient cult that worshiped sex and mushrooms. His obit in The Daily Telegraph pronounced him “the Liberace of biblical scholarship.”

(Emphasis added) What a shame that a shabby and botched obituary of another Biblical scholar has seen that reputation squandered overnight.

And the rot appears to go deep: a recent Tweet on the Telegraph‘s dedicated obituary Twitter feed, @telegraphobits, consists of the following notice:

Apologies for the erroneous tweet earlier regarding Neil Armstrong, which contained some text from a previous obituary for Sally Ride.

In a now-deleted Tweet with provoked widespread mirth and derision across the Twittersphere, @telegraphobits had shortly beforehand announced the death of “Neil Armstrong: First American woman in space”.

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From Joel Richardson, last week at WND:

An article featured last week on CNN’s website by Samuel Burke highlighted the epidemic of child brides throughout the Islamic world. Burke’s article begins by discussing the marriage of Faiz, an 11-year-old girl, and Ghulam, a 40-year-old man, in Afghanistan.

…According to Burke, there are approximately 51 million such child brides in the world today.

…The report continues to show that while Muslim men are supposed to wait until their child brides reach puberty before consummating the marriage, the private testimony of many women is that few Muslim men, once married, actually wait.

The implication is that from Morocco to Malaysia, “51 million” prepubescent children are being raped by Muslim men, under the sanction of either law or custom.

Burke’s article refers to the work of Stephanie Sinclair, a photographer who has documented child brides. Here’s what he actually says, in context:

Before their wedding ceremony begins in rural Afghanistan, a 40-year-old man sits to be photographed with his 11-year-old bride… She is one of the 51 million child brides around the world today. And it’s not just Muslims; it happens across many cultures and regions.

…Sinclair says while many Afghans told her the men would wait until puberty, women pulled her aside to tell her that indeed the men do have sex with the prepubescent brides. 

…In a Christian community in Ethiopia, she captured the image of a 14 year-old girl named Leyualem in a scene that looks like an abduction…

As regards Muslims, Burke’s anecdotes are drawn exclusively from Afghanistan and Yemen – two particularly underdeveloped parts of the Muslim world. Burke does not claim that there is an “epidemic… across the Muslim world”, and the “51 million” figure does not refer just to Muslims.

Further, it should be noted (and is this a point that Burke also fails to make clear) that the “51 million” actually refers to older adolescent girls rather than to younger children; the relevant source is a report from the International Center for Research on Women, entitled Too Young to Wed: The Lives, Rights, and Health of Young Married Girls:

Worldwide, there are more than 51 million adolescent girls aged 15–19 who are married and bearing the burden of domestic responsibility and the risks associated with early sexual activity, including pregnancy… Rates of early marriage are highest in West Africa, South Asia, and East and Central Africa, where approximately 30 percent or more of girls aged 15–19 are already married. Rates are also relatively high, but more moderate, in Central America and the Caribbean, where 20 percent of girls aged 15–19 are married, compared to 2–4 percent in North America, East Asia, and Western Europe.

A footnote explains that “figures provided on early marriage and related trends are from national Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in the corresponding country”. Also:

…It is difficult to obtain data on marital status or age at marriage among adolescents aged 10–14 because of the legal norms surrounding marriage and the fact that official statistics do not document illegal behavior; in some societies, the proportions of girls who are married when they are younger than 15 may not be insignificant.

The report considers the various causes of early marriage. The authors cite gender roles and a lack of alternatives; the value of virginity and fears about premarital sexual activity; marriage alliances and transactions; and the role of poverty. Richardson, however, sees no need to take any serious research on the subject into account; it is enough to assert that Muslims are simply emulating the behaviour of Muhammad in his marriage to Aisha:

…Why is the left so enraged when anyone mentions the truth with regard to Muhammad, who is so clearly the primary source of the child-rape-as-marriage practiced throughout many quarters of the world?

When given the option of offending Muhammad’s followers or standing with the most innocent little lambs this world knows, there is no option. People of moral courage simply cannot be silent any longer.

Of course, Richardson makes no mention of age of consent laws in Muslim countries, as that might dilute the disgust anger we should feel against “Muhammad’s followers”; George Readings drew attention to these laws in 2009:

…Marriage to a pre-pubescant child with whom consummation occurs upon reaching puberty is not a model most people would be happy with in the modern world (although Bolivia sets the age of consent at puberty).

Which is probably why nearly all Muslim countries have reformed these rules beyond recognition. The age of consent in Algeria and Malaysia is 16, in Indonesia it is 19 for males and 16 for females. In Egypt it’s 18 for both and Tunisia 20. Reform has not, however, come to Saudi Arabia. Back in April the world followed the case of a mother trying to obtain a divorce for her eight-year-old daughter who had been married off by her father to a friend he owed a debt. In the end she succeeded and now there is even talk of Saudi Arabia preventing marriage before the age of 18.

What a shame that Richardson appears to put less energy into providing truthful witness than he does into trying to discern signs of the coming Muslim Anti-Christ.

As an aside, it should also be remembered that a central story of the New Testament concerns a young teenage girl (in fact, perhaps as young as 12) who is allowed no control over her own fertility, and who is then married off to a man traditionally thought to be somewhat older than her. Is that something Christians should emulate?

UPDATE: As pingbacks indicate, the above post has caught the attention of the well-known Australian troll Werner Reimann (“Sheikh Yer’Mami”). Writing on his Winds of Jihad website, he claims that pointing out the above means that “Obviously, Richard (or is it ‘Dick’) supports pedophilia”, and that I might very soon end up “in a cell”. He also posts a photo of a Muslim girl which has been used previously as evidence of a mass child-wedding in Gaza; that story has been so thoroughly debunked that even WorldNetDaily made a minimal effort at damage control.

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From an anonymous “Guest Post” at Harry’s Place:

The Islamia Village event that was to take place at Thorpe Underwood Estate this Bank Holiday weekend (24th— 27th August) has now been cancelled.

Readers of this blog were first alerted to this event by The Islamic Far-Right in Britain, reposted at Harry’s Place on the 13th of July. Further coverage of the hate-preachers set to headline the event were subsequently posted at Hope Not Hate, Harry’s Place, and Student Rights.

As reported by The Islamic Far-Right in Britain several days ago, anti-extremist activists have been in negotiation with Thorpe Underwood Estate since the event was reported at Harry’s Place in July.

The Islamic Far-Right in Britain highlighted numerous quotes which show that several of the advertised speakers have a history making of hateful and extremist statements. The promotion of such views may or may not have been the specific purpose of the Islamia Village event, but it is certainly reasonable to be concerned and to take the view that any involvement by such persons would be pernicious.

According to a press release by the Estate quoted in the Harry’s Place post:

A spokesman for Thorpe Underwood Estate said that there had been problems in accommodating some of the key speakers in the event and that the Trustees had had no choice but to cancel.

However, comments from an unnamed trustee of the Estate (also added to the Harry’s Place post) suggest other factors:

The threat to “burn the buildings down with everyone in them” was made in a “comment” on a “Casuals Unlimted” blog site page.

AND for clarity the event was NOT cancelled because the organisers would not agree to what was being asked of them. It was a myriad of reasons – some very “sensitive” from a security point of view. The Police did not advise cancellation. The organisers at one point would have been willing for EVERY one of the speakers, highlighted as previous “hate-preachers,” to not even attend, let alone not speak. In the end it was a whole combination of reasons that made the Trustees believe they had come to the end of the line in attempting to host a non-controversial event that would have been safe for all concerned attending.

…This booking WAS checked out with ALL the relevant Government bodies possible and opinion sought as to whether the booking should have been refused. Rather than say, suggest or even infer that perhaps it would be sensible to say “no”, the responses were given as “positive to proceed”. The issued press release is correct “there were problems accomodating the key speakers”. Our earlier post was to give clarity as to the facts. Safety of those attending probably accounted for 80% of the decision making process. 

A website run by the “Casuals United Female Division” issued a “call to action” on 22 August, under the heading “Hate speech conference in #York this weekend action required #edl #bnp #ukip”; this was followed with

Well done all who helped get the #York hate festival cancelled #edl [English Defence League] #nwi [North West Infidels] #cxf [Combined ex-Forces] #nei [North East Infidels] #sdl [Scottish Defence League]

Working together we can apply massive pressure and stop these scumbags getting their message of hate out there. Well done everyone from various groups who sent emails or phoned. The Manager told me he was seriously not happy about the prospect of a demo outside his venue and promised he would cancel it which he has….

Further:

Well done everyone who called or emailed the venue and the York press. This is how to get results. The threat of us disrupting was enough to get the venue cancelled. Job done. Forget pointlessly standing in carparks, we frustrate them every time they announce a conference. Commies can only dream of being able to do this to us LOL.

The EDL, meanwhile, have posted to Facebook a “A massive thanks to the EDL and Casuals who got this event stopped.”

Such posts, along with the Trustee’s comments, tends to undermine the claim made at Harry’s Place that the cancellation

should be seen as a victory for peaceful campaigning and reasonable negotiation over hatred and extremism, whether the latter comes from Islamist fanatics or anti-Muslim hooligans. The latter will not, on this occasion at least, be claiming a victory for themselves on the back of others’ hard work.

There are two very obvious points that I shouldn’t need to state, but which it may be prudent to do so: the fact that Islamia Village may have been cancelled due to fears of aggressive protests – or worse – by anti-Islam groups does not mean that it was wrong to highlight, and to challenge, the involvement of hate preachers. However, concerns about hate preachers do not mean that we should gloss over why exactly the cancellation occured. Casuals United and the EDL may be trying to take credit for an outcome which was achieved by “reasonable negotiation” undertaken by others, but the Trustee’s comments appear to support their version of events.

It is odd that the Harry’s Place post is anonymous, and that that the “anti-extremist activists” who “have been in negotiation with Thorpe Underwood Estate” are unidentified . The person who runs The Islamic Far Right in Britain has left comments on this blog in the past (some of a goading nature), and he is clearly “Harry Burns” of the “Anti-Extremism Alliance”; the event’s cancellation is noted on a new Tweet on the AEA’s infrequent Twitter feed.

I discussed Burns and the AEA last year here; the group presents itself as being opposed all forms of extremism, and organisations such as the Quilliam Foundation are associated with it (perhaps this explains by the Islamic Network, which organised the Islamia Village event, in part blames the Quilliam Foundation for the cancellation; Quilliam does not appear to have made any public statement about the events). However, opposing political extremism is not the same thing as opposing extreme personal behaviour, and the AEA is quite willing to indulge thuggery: also involved with the group is Charlie Flowers, who has recently taken to writing deranged and violent fantasies about shooting people and who threatens to deploy paedo-smears against anyone whom he dislikes.

UPDATE: “Harry Burns” has added comments below, identifying himself as Andy Hughes and confirming that although he was previously a member of the AEA, he is now not currently part of the group. Meanwhile, Islamophobia Watch has noted the above post, and have highlighted his past involvement with the EDL. Harry (to use his preferred pen-name) now writes at The Islamic Far-Right in Britain:

IW is not exactly on the ball here, or purposely likes to juice his info up a bit. Yes, my ass was there at the start of the EDL in London back in 2009. There was a lot of good lads involved in EDL London at the beginning, in those days it really did what it said on the tin – demoing against Islamic extremism and believe it or not, Muslims joined us at the early demos in London. By the time we hit 2010 it had become a constant battle to keep anti-Muslim sentiment at bay and by mid 2010 I’d had enough and done a bunk.

…Google is your friend IW. “This from a man who until recently was himself an activist in the nationalist far right” < there’s the juice. Richard Bartholomew could/would have told him that EDL had been history for me for a long time. It obviously suits IW to add a bit of hype, there’s no boom!

I should perhaps make clear that I have never had any direct or private communication with Islamophobia Watch. The site often draws attention to news items that I find to be of interest, and I have sometimes been quoted by them. However, that does not mean that we share the same perspective: I’ve previously criticised the site for apparently suggesting that protesting against a particular event amounts to a wish to suppress free speech, and I don’t always agree with its interpretations of groups and individuals. I’ve always acknowledged that an element of the early EDL was anti-Islamic extremist rather than anti-Muslim (despite receiving threats and abuse from a member of that element), and I’m sparing about using labels such as “far-right”. Indeed, I tend to avoid using the term “Islamophobia” altogether, as vague and lacking in explanatory force.

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From Jon Swaine at the Telegraph:

Mitt Romney met John Willke, the doctor credited with popularising Todd Akin’s controversial views on rape and abortion, during the current election campaign and told him they agreed on “almost everything,” Dr Willke said.

Dr Willke, a prominent anti-abortion campaigner, claims to be an authority on the theory espoused by Mr Akin that victims of what the Republican congressman called “legitimate rape” do not become pregnant because their bodies “shut down” due to the trauma.

…The doctor said that he had also met Mr [Paul] Ryan, who sits in Congress for the Wisconsin district in which one of his sons lives, several times. He said that after listening to Dr Willke’s views on abortion during their last encounter, Mr Ryan replied: “That’s where I’m at”.

Other journalists have drawn attention to a 1999 essay by Willke, in which he explains “why rape pregnancies are rare”. Much of the article consists remarkably crude number crunching that should make a sociologist weep (“One-fourth of all women in the United States of childbearing age have been sterilized… the miscarriage rate is about 15 percent” etc), but he also – now notoriously – raised the issue of emotional stress:

Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions… So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one knows…

This speculation does not appear to have been a major theme in Willke’s thinking, although the Akin controversy has inspired him to expound on his theory further. This time, though, the role of hormones is supplemented by the – also now notorious – concept of “spastic tubes”. The New York Times reports:

“This is a traumatic thing — she’s, shall we say, she’s uptight,” Dr. Willke said of a woman being raped, adding, “She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.”

The media has noted Willke’s role as former president of the National Right to Life Committee. However, he is also president of the International Right to Life Federation, where a former vice-president (and current board member) is none other than John Smeaton of the UK’s SPUC. The two men were profiled in 2010 by The Interim (“Canada’s Life and Family Newspaper”):

Two leaders of the international pro-life movement, who have more than three-quarters of a century of pro-life experience between them, will be in Ottawa Oct. 28-30 for the Building a Global Culture of Life conference.

Dr. Jack Willke, president of the International Right to Life Federation, began working in the pro-life movement in 1971. John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, joined the organization in 1974.

Smeaton himself adds:

In Ottawa, I welcomed delegates on behalf of International Right to Life Federation (IRLF) which was co-sponsoring (in a purely honorary way) Campaign Life Coalition’s Congress. I was standing in for our IRLF president Dr Jack Willke (who arrived after the opening ceremony).

In recent months, SPUC has broadened its remit to include other Christian Right issues; in January, the group “resolved to defend human life by defending marriage from the [UK] government’s proposed redefinition to include homosexual couples”. A few weeks later, it held a meeting on “Sex Education as Sexual Sabotage”, at which several MPs were treated to one of Judith Reisman’s monomaniacal diatribes against Alfred Kinsey. The MPs present did not include Nadine Dorries; despite Dorries’ close links with the UK Christian Right, she regards herself as regards herself as a pro-choice reformer, and she has abused Smeaton as being “shameful and cowardly”.

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