Bartholomew's Notes

Back in November, I received a typically self-debasing comment from cyber-bully Charlie Flowers, this time hiding his shame behind the pseudonym “Righteous Death Angel”:

So your boss spent years stalking people and then one day he got turned over by people who didn’t give a damn? Deal with it, bizzotch. What you gonna do about it Commie Boy? Feds are after all your friends and soon they after you too…
you should be worried.

By “my boss”, Flowers is making a goading Tim Ireland, a blogger whom Flowers had attempted to intimidate into silence. When Flowers realised he’d been manipulated into doing this by someone else (and – worse – had got his friends to join in under a false premise), Flowers retroactively turned to the stalker smear to explain himself. I’ve been critical of Flowers ever since, and he’d rather believe that it’s because I’m either working for someone or because I’m a secret communist, rather than because I’m not prepared to look the other way. Flowers has been generally abusive my direction ever since, both in his own name and while cowering behind fake identities (most recently here).

But what about this very strange Americanised affectation of referring to “Feds”? The word recently turned up again in a comment left in March on the Facebook page of the “Save Masjid Tawhid Campaign“. This is an nasty Islamist Facebook page dedicated to attacking Usama Hasan, a British Muslim who has received threats and abuse for having argued at the mosque that Islam is compatible with evolution. The comment was posted by someone using the name “Commanding Good”:

ehhhmmm…. guys, be careful, this bunch are a Met Police unit, and they dont play. Cheerleaders, Blackeyes, NiceOnes, all feds, with a license to mess us up and no comeback :/ avoid them and block them!!

“Commanding Good”‘s Facebook profile url has the name “MindfulSalafi”. “Cheerleaders, Blackeyes, NiceOnes” are all groups that Flowers is involved with.

On 7 April, “Commanding Good” made a new post to the site:

?:0 “THE EAST LONDON THREE FAITHS’ FORUM – A Discussion on Science & Religion 8pm – Thursday, 14 April at the Al-Tawhid Mosque, 80 High Road Leyton E15 2BP. All welcome. No charge. Light refreshments.”

He expounded further in the comments (which are only visible if you sign in) :

They’re at it again!

and

OK daft question though… who’s going and will it be interesting? I wouldnt want to see fitna in the house of Allaah, obv.

It goes without saying that the people behind the Islamist website are deeply unpleasant – as well as the attacks on Hasan, the site’s controller has posted a crudely abusive and sexualised insult aimed at one of the members of British Muslims for Secular Democracy.

However, it is also the case that Flowers is posing as “Commanding Good” to manipulate the extremists who run the site in the hope that they will show up at the mosque and create a scene (“They’re at it again” discounts the possibility that he just wants to advertise the event in the hope some extremists will come and learn the error of their ways). The use of the word “feds”, the close attention to “Cheerleaders, Blackeyes, NiceOnes” (no-one is that interested), and the name “Mindful Salafi” all point in his direction; Flowers (or an associate) has a YouTube channel called “SalafiTV”. The last sentence primarily suggests backside-covering should things get out of hand.

Of course, Flowers will claim that since his aim is to entrap and expose extremists, anyone who objects to what he’s doing must therefore be in favour of the extremists – even though it’s obvious that these foolish antics are about thrill-seeking rather than anything that can be called political activism. The “Terror Target Sugar” fiasco should have taught him that these things tend to go horribly wrong, and are utterly counter-productive. He’s not just playing with the extremists, either: his silly games risk making life more difficult for Hasan, and may even undermine real police work.

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