Bartholomew's Notes

Independent Christian Churches International was founded in 1973 by the late Donald Ned Hicks,

to serve as an Ordaining body for men and women who felt a calling to the ministry. Over 8,000 ministers have been ordained since the inception of the Independent Christian Churches International.

The current head of the organisation is Archbishop Gregory Holley, and I’ve recently noticed that one of the “8,000 ministers” appears to be none other than Ted Baehr, of “Movieguide” fame (and one of Joseph Farah’s “favorite Christian cultural warriors”); according a profile at the website of the Lausanne Global Conversation:

I was ordained a Bishop in the Independent Christian Churches International in 1985. He was also ordained in the International Ministerial Fellowship in 2007.

(The switch from “I” to “He” seems to be an editing blip)

Holley also serves as  “Grand Prelate (United States)” for a chivalric order called the “Knights Hospitallers of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, the Ecumenical Order (OSJ)”.  As I”ve blogged previously, the “Grand Chancellor” of the OSJ is Gen William “Jerry” Boykin, while the “Grand Master” is a businessman named Nicholas Papanicolaou; the evangelist Rick Joyner is a mere “Deputy Member of the Supreme Council”, but he claims that his books are responsible for a “spiritual renewal” in the Order, and OSJ events have been held at the  Heritage Grand Hotel, which is controlled by Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries in Fort Mill ( the building was formerly owned by Jim Bakker, and Joyner remains close to the disgraced televangelist). Another “Prelate” of the OSJ is Ardell Daniels, an evangelist based in Jacksonville.

The organisation is primarily involved with charity work, but it is also hostile to Islam: Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was recently invested as a “Dame” of the OSJ at a ceremony in Rhodes, and Boykin and Papanicolaou co-signed a hostile statement on Islam on behalf of the OSJ in 2010 (“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?”). I looked at the historical claims of the OSJ here.

The OSJ is registered in Texas under Papanicolaou’s name as “The Hospitallers“, with the address “2104 Underwood Road, La Porte”. Holley also has several charities at the same address, and he founded a church there called the “New Life Christian Fellowship“. There is also some cross-over between the OSJ and Rick Joyner’s Christian Right “Oak Initiative” organisation: Papanicolaou, Boykin, and Daniels are all board members of the group, and its manager is Bill NeSmith of Harvest Light Ministries in South Carolina; NeSmith had “Ceremonial oversight” at the Grand Priory of The Carolinas’ “Solemn International Investiture” for 2011 at Fort Mill, and one of the OSJ’s websites is registered in his name.

However, another interesting – and rather surprising – link is with an organisation called the World Public Forum. The WFP promotes the “Dialogue of Civilizations”, and its international events regularly involve high-level politicians, academics, and religious leaders. Papanicolaou is a co-founder of the Forum, alongside Vladimir Yakunin, who runs Russia’s railways and who is described as a “confidant” of Vladimir Putin. WPF meetings on Rhodes have coincided with events held by the OSJ.

One would have thought that conservative evangelicals from the USA would be wary of such an urbane and multi-faith organisation: yet several of the above-mentioned figures have travelled to Rhodes to take part in WFP “Dialogue of Civilizations” Forums. Ardell Daniels was a “moderator” at a Forum event 2008; Rick Joyner and Gregory Holley took part in 2009 (alongside Lou Sheldon and Bob Weiner); Ted Baehr spoke in 2011.

Another link between the WPF and US conservatives is an association with the World Congress of Families – last summer, Yakunin’s wife (President of the Sanctity of Motherhood Program) joined Don Feder and Larry Jacobs at a WCF event in Moscow, and the WPF youth website carries an interview with Feder.

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The BBC World Service has broadcast a documentary on the MEK, presented by Owen Bennett-Jones and entitled “The Strange World of the People’s Mujahedin”. The end of the programme includes the following:

Bennett-Jones: In an exclusive statement for this programme, [the State Department has] gone further than ever before in clearly stating what it thinks of the MEK as a political force. Henry Wooster* is a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.

Wooster: Let’s cut to the heart of the matter on the MEK. They are not a viable opposition, despite their claims to be the best hopes for democratic reform in Iran. They control their members through measures such as mandatory divorce and celibacy, sleep deprivation, public shaming, and unquestioning devotion to their leader, among other techniques. The regime in Tehran notwithstanding, the US has no evidence or confidence that the MEK is an organisation that can promote the democratic values we’d all like to see in Iran. It would be unwise policy to suggest otherwise.

The programme also includes sceptical comment from John Limbert, who is a former US hostage in Iran and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran, and from Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institute; Riedel claims to know “up to a half dozen” individuals who have turned down invitations to speak on behalf if the group. There’s also input from ex-members, who allege abuse.

Bennett-Jones also speaks to a number of MEK supporters, mostly American but also including Ken Maginnis, a member of the House of Lords who became involved with the issue after being approached by a MEK activist in a street in Oxford (I’ve come across them in London from time to time).

Bennett-Jones lets both sides have their say, but MEK’s supporters have responded with a preemptive statement published yesterday, quoting “Brigadier General David Phillips, Commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade (2004 – 2005), and Colonel Wes Martin, Antiterrorism Officer for all Coalition Forces in Iraq (2003 – 2004) and Commander of Camp Ashraf (2006)”:

“In recent weeks, the producers of this report at BBC Radio asked for interviews about Camp Ashraf residents and related issues. We initially welcomed the interviews.  However, during the communications and in view of the questions asked, a picture of an unfair process with biased political objective and pre-determined agenda developed.  It is disturbing that the net result of this report will be condemnation of the Iranian opposition, as well as helping to set the world stage for indifference to another massacre such as occurred in 2009 and 2011. A part of this BBC team’s actions that was incomprehensible and unjustifiable for us was the insistence of the producers to rely on selected individuals who identify themselves to be former PMOI members as their witnesses and sources. We know many of these people very well and are fully aware of their relations with the fundamentalist Iranian government.”

MEK is also currently in the news over the a claim made by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker that members were  secretly given training in Nevada in and after 2005.

I previously blogged on MEK in 2008.

*Pronounced “Henry Worcester”, and also spelt that way by the Daily Mail.

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A 9 March posting on the website of the Republican Liberty Caucus  of Northeast Florida on the subject of blasphemy (taken from another source) describes Pastor Terry Jones as “a deservedly obscure Florida pastor with a congregation of less than 50”.

Whoops:

Presidential Candidate Terry Jones will address The Republican Liberty Caucus of Northeast Florida on the subject of “Freedom of Speech, Religious Liberty, Christianity & Islam.” Tuesday, April 3, 2012, 6:00 PM Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott – Jacksonville 4888 Lenoir Avenue, Jacksonville, FL 32216

According to a report in the Florida Times-Union,

About 50 people attended the event, hosted by caucus chairman Louis William Rose. Jones’ presentation was followed by a question-and-answer session with the caucus’ members.

“We love to have controversial speakers,” said Rose.

He said the group values debate and noted that they had invited in five members of the Occupy movement, who were in the parking lot of the hotel, to participate in the question-and-answer session, but they declined. He noted that the group had previously had speakers they disagree with, including Gary Koniz, a candidate challenging Ander Crenshaw for his congressional seat.

However, while Rose (who has a website here) seems keen to suggest a bit of distance from his group’s invited speaker, his vice chair Karyn Morton was unequivocally enthusiastic:

Dr. Jones gave a very interesting & inciteful presentation. I think people were impressed with his background and his commitment to keep Shariah law out of this country.

Meanwhile, Charisma News reports:

Pastor Terry Jones is back in the news again. This time he’s getting some legal support to stand up for his First Amendment rights in a high Muslim-populated city.

…The Thomas More Law Center on Monday filed a federal lawsuit in the against the city of Dearborn—and its police chief—over the city’s new tactic to stop Jones from speaking out against shariah law. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Jones, Stand Up America Now and Jones’ associate pastor Wayne Sapp.

In February, Jones filed an application for a special events permit that would allow him to speak on Saturday, April 7, in front of the largest mosque in North America, which is located in Dearborn, Mich.

Dearborn, however, demanded that Jones and his organization sign a “Hold Harmless” agreement as a condition to granting the permit. The agreement requires Jones to surrender all of his legal rights if he wants to speak on public property.

Charisma is published by Strang Communications, which in 2010 brought out Jones’ book Islam is of the Devil (under the Creation House imprint). However, if Strang is so worried out Jones’ ability to get his message out, one wonders why the company decided to withdraw his book from sale and scrub all reference to it when Jones became internationally notorious.

As has been widely reported, the lawsuit in Dearborn has been successful. Of course, the Thomas More Law Center’s defence of Jones’ right to speak ought not to be conflated automatically into an endorsement of Jones himself, but the TMLC doesn’t seem to see any need to make a distinction. According to a post on its website:

The Thomas More Law Center currently represents several Christian missionaries whose first amendment rights have been trampled upon by the City of Dearborn, home to the largest Muslim population in the United States.

Stand Up America Now, headed by Pastor Jones, was established for the purpose of proclaiming the Holy Bible to Muslims and educating people about the threat of Sharia law to our Nation’s fundamental principles of freedom. As part of his outreach efforts, Pastor Jones travels around the country speaking about Christianity at Muslim events and mosques.

The Thomas More Law Center defends and promotes America’s Christian heritage and moral values…

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Yesterday, I wrote about how in 2011 self-styled “terror tracker” named Dominic Wightman had used his Westminster Journal website to express his wish to run Tim Ireland and myself down with his car. Wightman – who formerly advised Patrick Mercer MP – has had a grudge against both of us since 2009, when we discovered that he was viciously deceitful.

Wightman sporadically makes false accusations against both Tim and myself, sometimes under his own name and sometimes using sockpuppets. In one instance, he even appeared on someone else’s website under the title “An Interview With Dominic Wightman: Counter-Terrorism, the UK, USA, and Venezuela”. It began with a preamble:

Dominic Wightman is a former director and spokesman for the counter-extremism network VIGIL, a contributor to think tank reports and editor of the Westminster Journal, an online magazine dedicated to exposing the activities of radical Islamist organizations in Great Britain. Due to permissive British libel law, later this month, the journal will be re-launched from New York…

Wightman used his platform to accuse Tim of being a stalker (a talking point taken from Tim’s political opponents), and to make the completely bogus claim that “neighbors told some locals that computers were removed” from Tim’s house by police.

The interview was subsequently taken down; it should be noted that one former associate has repudiated Wightman for his general behaviour, while others – such as Patrick Mercer and the crowd at the Centre for Social Cohesion – appear no longer to associate with him but have maintained a self-serving silence on the subject.

Incidentally, the claim that the Westminster Journal was “re-launched from New York” is utterly meaningless: Wightman resides in the UK, and there is no New York address associated with the site. Further, a New York address would not protect Wightman from a libel action in the UK anyway, because the site can be read in the UK. However, pursuing a libel action would be extremely expense, and costs are unlikely to be recovered: in 2009, when a court ruled that he had to pay an ex-employee £14,000 he simply moved his assets, declared bankruptcy, and created a sockpuppet website where he abused his creditor and mocked the court.

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Last June, I wrote about an abusive attack on me which appeared on website called the Westminster Journal. Its author was a man named Dominic Wightman, who in 2006 had been in the public eye as a private “terror tracker” running an organisation called the “VIGIL Network”. VIGIL had subsequently collapsed in disarray, and in circumstances which showed that Wightman was demonstrably dishonest and perhaps delusional. In 2009 he attempted to involve Tim Ireland and myself in a grudge against another ex-member of the group, but he overreached himself by creating a bogus document in this person’s name which the police traced back to him.

Wightman’s response to being exposed more widely as a blatant liar and manipulator was to engage in a campaign of on-line harassment, aimed for the most part at Tim and using multiple sockpuppet identities through which he made false accusations and posted taunting and abusive messages. Wightman involved various associates in some of these attacks, including a personal friend of his whom I attempted to contact last May. Wightman’s response was a new abusive attack, this time under his own name, and posted on his Westminster Journal website. The original version of his post included the following threat made against Tim and me:

You’re still a pair of spineless losers and I’d love to run you down in my Toryblue Range Rover.

This may not sound very serious, but Wightman’s behaviour towards Tim in particular has been personally intrusive and increasingly non-rational, and they live geographically close by each other. Wightman realised he’d crossed the line, and soon after amended the article to

You’re still a pair of spineless losers and – albeit a fantastical dream – I’d love to run you down in my Tory blue Range Rover

However, the authorities became involved, and the Crown Prosecution Service decided to act. Wightman’s website disappeared soon after. Following some delays, the scheduled court case was eventually dropped in September for reasons that remain unexplained. Wightman later resurrected his website, although a good part of it now consists of general news items plagiarised from other news sources. Most of the abusive material has gone, although Wightman recently re-instated the piece that got him into trouble (this time without the threat, even as a “dream”).

If Wightman were just some random troll I probably wouldn’t bother blogging about it – but there are two aspects which mean that his behaviour is of wider significance.

First, it is alarming that someone of Wightman’s character could manage to take posing as a terror expert as far as he did. He appeared on television, he advised Patrick Mercer (who was at that time Shadow Minister for Homeland Security), he apparently worked with police, and he contributed to the creation of reports about extremism (in particular, as “Dominic Whiteman” he assisted Denis MacEoin with a report for CIVITAS, and VIGIL is thanked in a Centre for Social Cohesion report by James Brandon and Douglas Murray).

Second, Wightman has played a role as an activist for the Conservative Party in Shamley Green. Here, he was a neighbour of a Tory grandee named Douglas Morpeth, who was named as the Westminster Journal‘s patron until Tim and I realised that Wightman was dishonest. At this point (September 2009), Morpeth’s name was removed from the site, and Wightman warned us not to try to contact him. Wightman told us that Morpeth had in fact resigned in April and was on “his deathbed”, and that any disturbance would lead to “massive legal repurcussions”.

Happily, the best part of three years later Morpeth is still very much alive, and attending to his emails. Tim explains what happened when Tim wrote to him about Wightman:

Morpeth initially took no action and offered no reply, but saw fit to forward our private correspondence to others, including Wightman. When pressed for a reply after a month of silence, he was exasperatingly evasive.

Not long after this (the weekend before the CPS inexplicably dropped their case against Wightman after his threats or violence against me), Wightman sought to intimidate me via an anonymous email that implied I would be up on a manslaughter charge should Douglas Morpeth suddenly drop dead as a result of my daring to ask him any further questions.

I’ve seen this email, which was sent to Tim in the guise of a message from a Muslim who had somehow accessed Wightman’s emails to someone else.

However, Wightman’s involvement with local Conservatives goes further than Morpeth. Wightman has boasted that he has the support of Anne Milton MP, and that she wants “Ireland downed”. Tim asked Milton for an explanation, which was not forthcoming. Back in 2005, Tim discovered that two activists working for Milton had been using the internet to smear a political opponent prior to an election; these activists were themselves standing as councillors, and so Jonathan Lord, now MP for Woking and at that time Chairman of the Guildford Conservative Association, decided to deal with it with a discrete word to them in private rather than by dismissing them for bringing the party into disrepute. That seems to be the default position when this kind of thing happens.

UPDATE: I see that Wightman (writing in third person) is claiming that

Last year Wightman wrote that “if he found these two stalkers on his drive ….he’d love to run these two losers down in his Tory Blue Range Rover”. He was speaking figuratively.

This suggests that his threat depended on trespass onto his property; but, as usual, he’s lying, as can be seen from the original quote and its amended version above. Although Wightman had on another occasion fantasised about us coming to his house so that he could “fight” us, there is nothing in the article discussed above about “if he found these two stalkers on his drive”. He is also claiming to have received “compensation” from the Crown Prosecution Service, although a phone call to the CPS in Surrey has confirmed that this would not have happened.

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Back in February, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary about Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), the leader of the English Defence League. The programme featured an encounter between a somewhat lubricated Lennon and a Muslim security guard. It included the following:

Guard: Not all Muslims are bad.

Lennon: I know they’re not, bruv. I know they’re not. Just most of them. Ha, I’m only joking.

Then to camera:

Lennon: Other than Breivik, cos he’ll shoot ’em all. I’m from Norway and I’ll shoot you. [Grins]

As a follow up, Lennon tried throwing stones from a distance at some police officers, as a prank; he then pulled his hood down over his face in comic fashion, and once again – apparently – said “Breivik”.

Lennon has now explained that there has been a misunderstanding, speaking on BBC1’s The Big Questions:

When I had me hood up and I had goggles on – this is what we’re up against as an organisation – I said “ribbit”, cos I looked like a frog, cos I had goggles on, and I was drunk. I didn’t say Breivik. They put a subtitle as “Breivik”, I didn’t say “Breivik”. I said “Ribbit”. And taken out of context, a lot of those things, if you know what the story behind what had happened, it’s not the way it looked.

It’s a fair point that reports claiming that Lennon had threatened the guard were wide of the mark; the guard actually initiated the exchange by shaking hands with Lennon and stating that he respected his views. As I wrote at the time, it was clear that Lennon’s “Breivik” comment was bad-taste humour rather than a threat of violence. Nevertheless, I added, the fact that the leader of the EDL finds Anders Breivik’s massacre to be a source of amusement ought to be seriously damaging. The fact that a second apparent reference to Breivik may have been a misunderstood frog impersonation doesn’t change that.

Lennon’s appearance on the The Big Questions came a day after a much-reported “European Counter-Jihad Meeting” in Aarhus, from which he was brought back in time for the programme at the BBC’s expense. The rally consolidated links between the various Defence Leagues and the “Stop Islamization” groups. This process has been ongoing over the past few months – Pamela Geller, who co-runs Stop the Islamization of America (and who has written a book with the same title, endorsed by John Bolton and Jerry Boykin), reaffirmed her support for the EDL last July after temporarily backing away, while the EDL’s alliance with Paul Weston and the British Freedom Party has helped to facilitate links with other groups (such as the Tennessee Freedom Coalition).

Lennon was careful to use his BBC appearance to distinguish between Islamists and Muslims; Matthew Goodwin, who was also on the programme, noted that the EDL is known for “slippage” on this point (here’s an example). However, Anders Gravers, who spoke at the Aarhus rally as the head of Stop the Islamisation of Europe, makes no such distinction. Geller has posted his vitrolic speech on her website:

…Islam is not a religion. It is the world’s biggest hate group.

Muslims choose to be members of this hate group.

…Every mosque being built must be protested against. Not only must protests be held outside mosques, but also the building companies making the mosques. Also the councils allowing mosques to be built.

Whenever a woman, or even worse, a child is raped, we must protest outside the mosque closest to where it happened. Even if it is only four or five people.

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News from India:

India Youth Forum was organized by The International Youth Time Movement at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The forum saw 130 international delegates and experts from 34 countries participate in dialogues on 5 key issues through Open Roundtables and interactive discussions. The conference opened with the plenary session Chaired by Mr. Imran Mukhtarov, the representative from the Ministry of Education, Azerbaijan.

The Session saw Mr. Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations and Dr. Vladimir Yakunin, President of Russian Railways, co-founding President of the World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations”…

A quote from Yakunin follows:

Being associated with the Youth Forum, I am delighted that the youth of today are challenging themselves to break the barriers and work together for a better future. The World Public Forum and I personally support the Youth Time international movement as the initiative of young active people from all over the world.”

In fact, Youth Time International, which is headed by a certain Julia Kinash, appears to be a youth off-shoot of the World Public Forum (previously blogged by me here) – it was founded as the “Rhodes Youth Forum” in October 2010, days before a World Public Forum event on the island, and the WPF looms large on the YTI website; a report from a meeting in Prague relates that

…The next day participants had the honor of meeting and accompanying Mr. Vladimir Yakunin to the round table, where they went through the draft of conference’s resolution and analyzing each task we believed should be included into the official resolution of «Youth Time» movement. The result of our two-day meeting was an official resolution where our movement has shifted from ideas to action. Furthermore, the adopted resolution, signed by all participants of the conference, was presented at gala dinner in “Troya Castle”. The event organizers have also reminded us about the success of “Rhodes Youth Forum” (3-6 October 2010) and all other past activities related with World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations”.

The site’s most recent posting is a call for “Traditional Family Values”, and there is an interview with Don Feder of the World Congress of Families – last summer, Yakunin’s wife (President of the Sanctity of Motherhood Program) joined Feder and Larry Jacobs at a WCF event in Moscow.

The website also carries a statement calling for the release from prison of Archimandrite Ephraim, the Abbot of Vatopedi on Mount Athos; as I blogged here, Ephraim was arrested for suspected fraud shortly after his return to Greece from a tour of Russia with the Mother of God’s belt. The visit had been organised by Yakunin to promote family values in Russia, and the statement on behalf of Ephraim was composed by Yakunin’s St Andrew the First Called Foundation. Yakunin’s efforts on behalf of Ephraim and in relation other matters (such as funding the building of a church in Estonia) can be seen as part of wider efforts by Russian Orthodoxy – and the Russian state – to position itself as the international defender of Orthodoxy.

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From Norway, Dagbladet reports that Anders Breivik has stated under police interrogation that he was “inspired” (“inspirert”) by the 4 Freedoms website. This is not particularly surprising – 4 Freedoms is an “anti-jihad” forum, and it is well-known that Breivik read such such sites. However, 4 Freedoms is Alan Lake’s main vehicle for expounding his views, and there has been media interest in Lake since Breivik’s massacre; Lake responded to speculation about a link in December.

Dagbladet goes on to claim that the 4 Freedoms website is actually part of a “Four Freedoms Community”, and that the group’s “inner circle” (“indre sirkel”) has held “secret meetings” (“hemmelige møter”) in two churches in central London. The Google translation is slightly unclear in places, but it appears that at least one participant has alleged attempted “brainwashing” (“hjernevasking”).

The paper also claims to have spoken to a “leading figure in the extreme Christian community in the UK” (“En lederskikkelse innen det ekstreme, kristne miljøet i Storbritannia”), who showed the newspaper cards outlining Lake’s views and his “12-Point Plan for Equal Civil Rights”. Details of these “12 points” are readily available on 4 Freedoms; Dagbladet appears be claiming, inaccurately, that they amount to some kind of code of conduct to regulate members’ lives (“Four Freedoms Community vil regulere livsførselen til sine medlemmer.”).

Although the fact of the meetings is of interest, the report is somewhat overegged – towards the end of the article it is confirmed that their locations were commercial hirings, and it’s impossible to judge whether the unnamed “leading figure” (a woman) really actually represents anyone. Newspapers are also notoriously quick to raise the spectre of “brainwashing” when confronted with people holding views they find strange.

Dagbladet has a photo of the interior of one of the churches – it is small, and appears to be an old building that has been refurbished with modern chairs and carpet. A distinctive modern stained-glass window shows Jesus standing on a geographically-detailed globe of the world, flanked by peoples of world in modern dress (including a kneeling woman in a kimono); the report states that the churches were Pentecostal.

Lake’s own religious views are not clear – on one occasion he posted a strange anti-evolution chart to 4 Freedoms, and Searchlight has claimed that he formerly attended Kensington Temple, a large charismatic church in west London. However, he has shown no interest in the kind of “Crusader” imagery which so enthuses a number of religiously-inclined “anti-jihad” types.

There’s actually a post on 4 Freedoms about me – Lake was moved to accuse me of metaphorically “masturbating in public” for raising some issues about Rabbi Nachum Shifren, whom Lake helped to make links with the English Defence League. Lake also has links with a particularly unpleasant man who has been known to troll me on-line from time to time with abuse and threats – details here.

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Two days ago, as I blogged here, the Sun announced that “al-Qaeda fanatics are plotting a deadly cyanide poison attack on the London Olympics”. “Chief investigative reporter” Simon Hughes wrote that an unnamed “investigator” had spotted, on an unnamed website forum, that a certain “Abu Hija Ansari” had posted instructions, in Arabic, for mixing hand-cream with cyanide. Further:

A second extremist said on the website: “It is a good idea and you need to plan well.”

She added chillingly under a logo of the 2012 Games: “It’s time to prepare for the event, as once again they are interfering with innocent Muslims.”

The Sun‘s story spread widely, and in the UK inspired derivative articles from the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. According to the Telegraph

Neither the government, Scotland Yard nor the Security Services have commented on the reports.

However, the Mail tells us that

Scotland Yard said it had no information on the alleged cyanide.

The Sun also secured a quote from Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the all-party homeland security group:

“I hope the individuals are identified so action can be taken. Those who believe there is no terrorist threat are living in cloud cuckoo land.”

One would expect Jenkin to do more than “hope”, especially given that police apparently don’t know anything about it – but so far there has been no follow-up or any further developments.

The Sun‘s cyanide revelation came a week after it supposedly exposed terror plotting taking place inside on-line games. David Willetts and Tom Wells reported that:

TERRORISTS are using online war games like Call of Duty to plot attacks, The Sun can reveal.

…Last night, a source said: “It’s a terrifying reality. These people waste no time finding a secure method of chatting.

“They are logging into group games over the internet and discussing terror plots. Security people know about it.

“For millions who love these games this will be a huge shock.

“To think fanatics use them for their own ends is a real worry.” Sources say plotters choose realistic conflict games so they can mask their deadly discussions as harmless web chat.

…News of the growing threat comes five years after the CIA first warned of the menace.

This one doesn’t even bother to tell us what kind of “source” has made us aware of the “terrifying reality”. Although the story appears plausible, the article is utterly devoid of any information about any actual instance where this may have occurred.

This comes in the wake of the Sun‘s “breast implant bomber” yarn (which quoted Joseph Farah, of all people, as a “terrorist expert”), and the paper’s “Taliban HIV-Needle” story, which was fed to it by Patrick Mercer. Both stories were similarly short on specific detail, and no further evidence ever emerged.

Apparently we’re supposed to have forgotten that the last time the Sun relied on an investigator to discover on-line terror-plotting, the investigator turned out to have made most of the postings that were then used as evidence. The investigator’s posts in the guise of an Islamist led to him being arrested at the end of 2009 “on suspicion of inciting religious hatred against Jews”; however, for reasons that were never made public, the charge was eventually dropped.

UPDATE: The Sun‘s “Call of Duty” story was picked up by the Daily Mail, which added that:

…The claims come a month after it emerged that the government is set to announce new laws to require communications companies to store all information passed between users online.

What remarkable timing…

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Last night saw the broadcast on BBC 2 of The Mormon Candidate, a documentary presented by John Sweeney. Mitt Romney provides a hook for a general discussion of the religion, focusing on various controversies: the fringe polygamists, the special underwear, the secret oaths, the baptisms of the dead, and complaints from ex-members in Utah about shunning and harassment. Sweeney raises the “cult” accusation several times – unfortunately, it is impossible to listen to Sweeney articulate the word without recalling his risible attempt to needle John Travolta by yelling “Are you a member of a sinister brainwashing cult?” at a film premiere in Leicester Square back in 2007 (discussed here).

The programme contained few surprises, although several of Sweeney’s interviews are of interest. The most noteworthy was with Jeffrey Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, although it’s not clear why Sweeney asserts that “Apostles rarely speak to the media”. The interview afterwards became the subject of a formal complaint, delivered to the BBC by representatives of a PR firm. (1)

Sweeney asked Holland about Joseph Smith’s supposed translations from Egyptian, and his arrest in 1826:

Jeffrey: …What got translated got translated into the word of God. The vehicle for that I do not understand and don’t claim to know and know no Egyptian. 

Sweeney: As a matter of historical fact, was Joseph Smith convicted of being a conman in 1826?

J: I have no idea.

S: There’s a court record in New York, we’ve got an email of it.

J: There’s a good deal of difficulty in the early frontier life in America. But that’s an incidental matter to the character and integrity of the man.

Sweeney adds in voice over:

Since that interview the church has written, saying that no charges against Smith ever prevailed.

Later, they discuss secret oaths, which were part of the church until 1990:

S: As a Mormon, in the Temple, I’ve been told, [Romney] would have sworn an oath to say that he would not pass on what happens in the Temple, lest he slit his throat. Is that true?

J: That’s not true, that’s not true. We do not have penalties in the Temple.

S: You used to.

J: We used to.

S: Therefore he swore and oath saying ‘I will not tell anyone about the secrets here, lest I slit my throat’.

J: Well, the vow that was made was regarding the ordinance, the ordinance of the Temple… [The oath was] that he would not tell anyone about his personal pledge to the Lord. I’m assuming that any religious candidate, an evangelical, a Roman Catholic, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Osama, erm, I mean President Obama, I’m assuming that anybody who has a relationship to God has made a pledge of some kind to God.

Jeffrey comes across as straight-talking and personable, but the above is somewhat odd: I would expect someone in Jeffrey’s position to be fully briefed on the church’s position about what occurred in 1826. And why make such a firm denial about the use of oaths, which is then qualified away into an effective admission?

Sweeney also looks into the Strengthening Church Members Committee, which ex-members claim keeps tabs on them. According to one ex-Mormon interviewee:

I personally left the church many years ago, and then came back in. And, when they accepted me back into the church, I was given my file. And my file was that thick [holds finger and thumb up, about an inch apart]. So, these were letters from, and reports from, state presidents, and letters that I had sent to other people in the church.

Another claims that the Committee employs former FBI and CIA agents for this purpose; in a voice-over, Sweeney adds that:

We met a former CIA man, who does not want to be identified, but confirms that the agency employs a large number of Mormons, and some who go on to work for the church.

Michael Purdy, the church’s spokesman, was somewhat evasive on the subect:

S: What’s the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and does it still exist?

P: I don’t know, and I’m no…. I guess that’s a question not for me. I… I couldn’t tell you that, I don’t know… 

S: …I’ve spoken to people, ex-members of the church, who say the Strengthening Church Members Committe does exist. Does it still exist?

P: I’ve heard that, yeah, there is a Strengthening Church Members Committee, but I couldn’t you the details of how that works, but we’d be happy to provide someone that can.

Jeffrey confirmed that the Committee exists to protect the church, primarily from polygamists.

Mitt Romney’s personal Mormonism was only a minor theme in the programme, and the only anecdote which touched on how Romney’s religion may tell us something about his personal character came from Peggie Hayes; Hayes is a single mother who claims that Romney, as a Morman Bishop in the 1980s, pressured her to give up a baby for adoption. An interview with Mia Love, a Morman mayor, gave a partial insight into “normal” Mormon life; more of this kind of thing would have given the programme more balance.

British Mormon blog By Common Consent raises some criticisms, particularly as regards Sweeney’s discussion of oaths:

Mormonism is, unapologetically, a covenant religion. Its crime in BBC eyes seems to be that it has, in the past, symbolised its covenants in distinctly pre-modern ways. Ancient rituals performed by Zoroastrian priests or Orthodox patriarchs are acceptable; similar rites performed by western moderns are not. The underlying belief seems to be that educated folk like Romney should know better. This is an unfortunate kind of secular paternalism. It also bears repeating that these oaths are long dead.

…The real fact is that at the core of Mormonism is a rather plain, low church Christianity, with decaffeinated adherents who go about their lives paying their taxes, loving their families, serving in their communities, helping the poor, and making mistakes along the way. The vast majority of Mormons I know would not be able to see themselves at all in Sweeney’s documentary.

Meanwhile, Biased BBC has gleefully screen-captured some unguarded Tweets by the programme’s producer, James Jones, which express his political and religious views.

(1) The Guardian spins the story thus:

A BBC employee has been criticised by colleagues for allegedly allowing two PRs representing the Mormon church into one of the corporation’s buildings in west London to hand deliver a letter of complaint.

Sweeney, who was out of the country when the incident occurred, told MediaGuardian: “I was flabbergasted that the PR operation for the Mormon church found it necessary to invade our office. Even Scientology didn’t invade the offices of the BBC and people say they can walk through walls

…A BBC insider said many within the corporation were furious that the PRs were granted access.

The BBC issued a statement which said: “A person turned up unexpectedly and hand delivered a letter to which we later responded. There was no breach of security.”

I’m not impressed by this – the Church’s complaint is of interest, but the fact that some unnamed security guard or receptionist let the PR people in is a non-story. It looks like a lame attempt to suggest something sinister.

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