Bartholomew's Notes

Earlier this evening Channel 4 broadcast Miracles for Sale, a documentary in which the illusionist Derren Brown trained up a scuba-diving instructor named Nathan to pose as a Christian faith healer. Brown showed some of the techniques used by faith healers – exaggerating the ailments of those who come forward for healing, using suggestion, and the hoary “leg-lengthening” routine – while Geoff Colman of the School of Speech and Drama (misspelt as “Coleman” in the credits) gave some method acting tips. Further advice came from two ex-Pentecostal faith healers; these were Mark Haville and a musician named Woody Woods. Haville, who is credited as “Specialist Programme Consultant”, is the author of a DVD called The Signs and Wonders Movement: Exposed, and from an interview here it’s clear that he today identifies with a Reformed strand of Protestant fundamentalism (curiously, Haville last year brought the documentary Expelled to the UK, apparently in order to stimulate a debate which he hoped would benefit Creationism).

Nathan was given a backstory as “Pastor James Collins”, including a fake (and slightly ropey) website called “Gifts of the Spirit Ministry”. Brown and the team then headed off to Dallas, where they met up with Ole Anthony of the Trinity Foundation, a well-known Christian watchdog organisation. Anthony explained what had originally motivated him, telling the story of a teenage multiple sclerosis victim who had committed suicide after donating $1,000 to a healer only to be told that her illness had continued to progress because of “secret sin”. Later, Brown talked with John Edwards, another former faith healer. Edwards, who has a blog here, explained that he had allowed his daughter to die from a brain tumour in the mistaken belief that she would be healed; this seemed to undermine Brown’s claim that faith healers are simply con-artists who don’t really believe in what they do, although this point was not explored.

Before arriving in the USA, Brown and the team had made links with an (unnamed) Christian PR agency to promote “Pastor James”, but they decided to sever the relationship for ethical reasons after realising that their deception could have devastating consequences for the agency concerned. Instead, they decided to self-publicise once in Dallas, persuading some local Christians to give out flyers, hiring a worship leader named Brenda, and introducing themselves to a certain Pastor Sean Pinder (who has some videos here). Pinder allowed “James” and the crew to film a service, which included healing a man who was deaf in one ear; to prove the healing, Pinder covered the man’s good ear and gave him instructions, but – as Brown points out in the narration – the good ear was not covered in way that would have obstructed hearing.

Pinder agreed to take part in “Pastor James’s” service a few days later, at the Lakewood Theater. Here, Nathan’s six months of practice and training were put to the test with a real audience: he gave his testimony, members of the (fairly small) crowd were slain in the spirit, and he showed supernatural knowledge of illnesses and provided healings. Then came the twist: a second address, in which, while maintaining his pastor persona, he warned the audience not to be taken in by bogus healers and denounced the idea of promising healings in return for money. The crowd appeared generally appreciative, although Pinder looked uncomfortable and his clapping at the end was decidedly unenthusiastic.

Harville and Edwards were both formerly members of the “Word of Faith” movement, a trend in Pentecostalism which stresses “health and wealth” (also known as the “Prosperity Gospel”). While in Dallas, Brown and his crew took the opportunity to check out a compound belonging to Kenneth Copeland, who is probably the movement’s best-known contemporary exponent (although he’s also very much a part of the broader Christian Right). The crew’s vehicle passed through an open gate to head towards a church on the compound, but they were quickly intercepted by the local sheriff, who took their details and gave them a criminal trespass warning. Copeland’s security alleged that they had twice been warned off the property, although this was disputed by the crew. It seemed odd that they should have jeopardised their project for what amounted to a bit of padding.

For light relief, there was also a segment with veteran faith-healer WV Grant, whose ministry, appropriately, is based in a converted car showroom. Exposing Grant’s charlatanism was easy pickings: a member of the crew (filming secretly) wrote a false name on a contact card, and Grant later duly repeated this false name as supposedly revealed to him by God. Later, Grant performed the leg-lengthening trick on Brown himself, unaware of his identity.

The programme didn’t break any new ground, and well-known footage of the James Randi exposure of Peter Popoff from 1986 served to emphasise this; as John Crace notes in the Guardian:

 …It wasn’t entirely clear why Brown felt it necessary to go to such trouble to turn an ordinary member of the public – the very likable Nathan – into a fake faith healer and take him to America to see if he could fool a bunch of gullible Texans, who have already proved they are happy to be taken in by their own fake faith healers.

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As has been widely reported, the MPs Nadine Dorries and Frank Field recently put forward an amendment to be discussed in Parliament on the subject of abortion; according to Dorries:

Our amendment seeks to make provision for a woman presenting with an unplanned pregnancy to be offered counselling via her GP. At the present time, it can only be requested and paid for via the abortion provider. We think that presents a vested interest. 

In particular, Dorries complains about the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists:

The RCOG was charged by the previous government with the task of reviewing the 2004 guidelines regarding the care of a woman seeking an induced abortion.

Eighteen eminent members were formed into a working group to redraft the requested guidance, however, many doctors and professionals have been dismayed at the way the RCOG group has gone about its business.

The first point of concern is the group itself. Eleven of the group are abortionists, two are abortion clinic providers and one is a celebrity doctor.

…The very least members of the working group should have to do is declare their interests and state how much they earn from working in the abortion industry and where the money comes from.

Daylight is the best disinfectant. It’s time for the RCOG to move into this century and realise that operating in such a cloak and dagger manner is no longer acceptable. The public want to know what they are doing and why.

Dorries and Field have cooperated in the area of abortion law previously, and Dorries purports to take the middle ground:

This is the problem with pro-life and pro-choice. Pro-life want abortion banned entirely and pro-choice would like to go all the way to partial birth abortion. There is no place for either position in today’s society…

I apologise to those who are fed up reading about my position on abortion. I will not allow either pro-life or pro-choice to put me into each other’s camp.

I am in my camp, with Frank for company. That camp is pro-women. It is the middle, sensible, common sense ground and it’s where I am staying.

The problem is, though, that Dorries has a history of misrepresentation in this area (and in other areas, for that matter): back in November she introduced a pregnancy counselling organisation called Forsaken into a Parliamentary debate; she described it as being “neither pro-life nor pro-choice”, when its only publication is a booklet explaining that human life begins at conception and that women who have had abortions can find peace and God’s forgiveness by converting to Christianity. Her claim to be neither “pro-life nor pro-choice” is described by Unity at Ministry of Truth as a “wedge strategy”, and he notes her links to religious lobby groups:

A Powerpoint presentation produced by Dr Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship for the Lawyers Christian Fellowship in 2007… indicates that Dorries’ current campaign and amendments are part of long-term strategy put together by an alliance of prominent anti-abortion organisations with the overall objective of securing the complete prohibition of abortion in the UK on any grounds, including rape, serious foetal abnormality and even serious risk to the life of mother.

…There are already altogether far too many ‘coincidences’ between Dorries’ campaigning activities over the last five year and the contents of Peter Saunders presentation to plausibly sustain the fiction that Dorries is somehow operating independently of the UK’s highly organised anti-abortion lobby.

Saunders’ presentation was for a campaign called “Alive and Kicking”. Further:

In 2008, Dorries fronted a relatively high-profile campaign for a reduction in the upper limit to 20 weeks during which it emerged, in a Channel 4 documentary, that she was working behind the scenes with Saunders’ buddy, Andrea Minichiello Williams (ex-Lawyer Christian Fellowship, currently heading up Christian Concern and a director of the Christian Legal Centre). Her campaign website was also the work of one of Minichiello Williams’ operations (Christian Concern), a detail that Dorries chose not to mention at the time and, of course, having run a very public campaign for a 20 week upper limit, she actually voted for a 12 week limit, although not before she’d expressed a preference for a 9 week limit in comments at the Spectator.

I blogged on the Channel 4 documentary here; Christian Concern (at that time called “Christian Concern for Our Nation”) in turn has close links with the Alliance Defense Fund in the USA. Unity’s writing has drawn a hostile response from Dorries and from Saunders, both of who accuse him of having constructed a conspiracy theory (in Dorries’ case, she was for some reason moved to create a blog post using an exceptionally large font size). Unity has responded here, further noting that

Alive and Kicking self-consciously toned down its act during the [2008] Bill’s passage through the House of Commons in an effort to convey more of a ‘moderate’ image of their campaign to the general public, and they did this largely by limiting the information they included in press releases and relying on the press not to bother doing a full background check.

…Some of the information in the Saunders’ presentation was in the public domain at the time, but this did not include the information contained on the slides relating to abortion and rape, foetal abnormality or where a woman’s life is at risk – this information would have proved particularly toxic has it been made public at the time – nor did it include the information on other slides which outlined AAK’s acceptance and adoption of a gradualist approach to securing the total prohibition of abortion and set out its intentions to target both the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Psychiatrists in an effort to push their agenda.

Meanwhile, an anonymous “Right to Know Campaign” has appeared on the internet to complement the new amendment:

The Right to Know Campaign is backing an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill being laid by Nadine Dorries MP and Rt Hon. Frank Field MP. The amendment would ensure that women considering an abortion would be guaranteed access to independent information and advice from someone who had no vested financial interest in the outcome of their decision.

…How can women be sure that they are getting independent information and advice when it comes from organisations that rely so heavily on charging the NHS for each abortion they carry out and so have a vested financial interest in an abortion going ahead.

Tim Ireland has looked for some more information about the campaign:

The people running the web presence for the Right to Know campaign have been asked via Twitter if they will declare who is funding/supporting their efforts, but they have declined to answer. They have also been asked via their YouTube account to provide some scant information about who is working the pumps, but have responded by deleting every such question without answering, and disabling comments on their campaign videos so these questions might be hidden from the public.

Further, a WHOIS lookup for the relevant domain name revealed that the registrant had violated the terms of service of the provider (Nominet) in order to hide their identity; they used a generic description in place of a name (‘Web Officer’) and hid the registering address from public view with a false claim that the site was the work of a private individual.

When Tim looked into Forsaken a few months ago, Dorries threatened to have him arrested for daring to do so, but he has  nevertheless persevered with Right to Know:

The registrant has so far refused to update the details to bring it in line with Nominet’s requirements, but last week Nominet did exercise their right to withdraw the privacy settings on the address.

…At this address is the office of the law firm Cooke Matheson, part of Wellers Law Group.

None of the people I spoke to initially at Wellers Law Group knew anything about any of this until Paul Martin popped up to theorise that it had not been registered by anyone in their organisation, but had instead been registered by a client.

The client remains undisclosed, although Tim notes that Paul Martin, like Dorries, has links with Christian Concern.

Of course, a hidden motivation or interest – whether religious or strategic – does not in itself invalidate the substantive content of an argument (“argument is argument”, as Johnson put it), but as Tim points out:

…Right to Know bases their entire argument on the position that women have a right to know about vested interests that influence the information they receive, and yet they do so without declaring their own interest(s).

As a complement to her efforts on the abortion counselling front, Dorries is also seeking to influence sex education; a 10 Minute Rule motion is to be discussed in Parliament in early May on the benefits of abstinence:

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require schools to provide certain additional sex education to girls aged between 13 and 16; to provide that such education must include information and advice on the benefits of abstinence from sexual activity; and for connected purposes.

Alas, the idea of Dorries pontificating on “the benefits of abstinence” is inherently ludicrous, given that just four months ago a man left his wife to become her lover. She does not explain to what “certain additional sex education” she has in mind, although it’s very likely to be materials derived from conservative evangelicals in the USA; such materials tend to stress female “purity”, which would explain the otherwise strangely exclusive focus on girls.

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News from Kenya, where Philip Etale, communications director of the ODM political party, has a complaint about a prayer meeting in Uhuru Park:

….Instead of speaking humbly as they were before God and clergy, the politicians turned the forum into a political theatre with name calling and curses all aimed at Raila Odinga.

The prayer meeting at Uhuru Park was more of a campaign rally that a place to worship God. Insults and swearing filled the air before cameras and the public. I was flabbergasted by the statements made by these leaders who were merrily singing the Kenya National Anthem — in itself a prayer— at the Hague and yet were the same spewing selective truths at the Uhuru Park ‘prayer session.’…

The “prayer meeting” was for the benefit of the “Ocampo Six”, six politicians – including the Deputy Prime Minister – who have just returned from the Hague following preliminary hearings at the International Criminal Court relating to violence following the 2007 election. “Ocampo” refers to the judge, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

The Kass Media Group has some further background:

[William] Ruto observed that the Uhuru park meeting was purely a prayer meeting. “We are going for a prayer meeting. We do not want to confront anybody. We only want to pray for our country.”

…Police kept tight security at the park to avoid a potential showdown between ODM and PNU supporters whom both claimed to hold licenses to hold rallies at the venue.

The police had clarified that the venue had been booked by an organization calling itself, Federation of Evangelical & Indigenous Christian Churches of Kenya (FEICCK) through their national chairman one Bishop Joseph Methu.

Police Spokesman Erick Kiraithe clarified that FEICCK was holding the rally in conjunction with the organising committee for the homecoming rally organised for the Ocampo Six.

The trials in the Hague have been the focus of conspiracy theories; according to the AP:

Obama, Ocampo, Odinga — they all share the distinctive first letter of members of the Luo tribe in Kenya, and some in this East African nation believe that the three are brothers in a conspiracy to see six suspects convicted at Ocampo’s Hague-based court so that Odinga can become president in the land where Obama’s father was born.

Though the conspiracy is fanciful, it has traction among those who believe the ICC suspects, who are charged with orchestrating Kenya’s 2007-08 postelection violence, are being unfairly prosecuted.

The idea that Obama is secretly working with Odinga has also been a theme of Tea Party conspiracy-mongering in the USA; in 2008 WorldNetDaily‘s Jerome Corsi (now the author of a WND-published Birther book) travelled to the country to “investigate”. However, even Corsi just might pause for a moment before adding Ocampo into the mix:

…Though Odinga and Obama’s father are both Luo, Ocampo is Argentinian — not Luo.

FEICCK and Methu are of interest; according to its website, FEICCK

 was established in the year 2005 after various consultative meetings with various founders and heads of Evangelical and Indigenous Christian Churches and denominations from across the Republic of Kenya.

…The Federation was officially registered in the Republic of Kenya as an umbrella body under the societies Act in January 2007. The Federation has since grown from 10 member Churches and Denominations to 78, representing a population of not less than 4 million Christians across Kenya.

Methu, meanwhile, has links with the Unification Church’s “Global Peace Celebration” front group; in December he gave the invocation at a GPC event in Atlanta, and atttended an associated Strengthening Families Summit. A write-up by Hyun Jin Moon (Rev Moon’s son) tells us that Methu “played a prominent role in the recent Global Peace Convention 2010 in Nairobi”.

I previously blogged on clergy and political conflict in Kenya here.

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Right Wing Watch has been keeping an eye on the recent Oak Initiative Summit:

Addressing the dominionist Oak Initiative summit this weekend, Alan Keyes used his opportunity on stage with Janet Porter, Jerry Boykin, and Rick Joyner to urge Congress to impeach President Obama on the grounds that Obama is supporting international interventions in Libya and the Ivory Coast so as to establish a “precedent” whereby were he were to lose his reelection bid and refuse to “give up power,” the international community would intervene militarily in the US to keep him in office.

But that’s just the start of it:

Alan Keyes was also a featured attraction on the main stage, where he ranted that God created America so that all citizens would act according to His law and to His will.  But America has squandered that gift and so it is only a matter of time before God destroys this nation … and the recent earthquake in Japan is proof that such a time is getting near.

This is a talking point that has come directly from Rick Joyner; Joyner is a neo-Pentecostal evangelist, and the Oak Initiative is his vehicle for  increasing his prominence as a player on the Christian Right. Last month, Joyner warned that the Japanese earthquake would herald the economic collapse of the USA, and that a huge earthquake was imminent in California. As evidence, Joyner cites messages given by God to Jim Bakker.

Right Wing Watch also notes Boykin’s contribution to the event:

Speaking on the dangers of Islam at The Oak Initiative Summit, Retired General Jerry Boykin attacked religious leaders who seek interfaith dialogue and understanding with Muslims, claiming that when Muslims pray, they curse Jesus and asserting that Islam is not an Abrahamic faith and therefore Christianity and Islam have absolutely nothing in common.

This is par for the course, and one of the other summit speakers, Nicholas Papanicolaou, recently wrote a book for the Oak Initiative’s publishing house, called Islam vs the United States. However, there’s also something a bit strange going on here: in Europe, Papanicolaou helps to run an organisation which exists to promote inter-religious dialogue, including with Muslims, and in 2009 Joyner spoke at one of its conferences. Papanicolaou, Joyner, and Boykin are also all leading members of a “chivalric order”.

Although the destruction of the USA may be imminent, Keyes is still thinking ahead, and he is planning to put in appearance at Joseph Farah’s 2011 WND Tea Party at Sea in August, alongside the likes of Aaron Klein and Molotov Mitchell. Keyes is a regular fixture on these jaunts; here he is in an advert for last year’s event, where he is bafflingly billed as “Admiral Alan Keyes”. Perhaps that’s an example of the “misinformation” which Farah recently admitted his WorldNetDaily site carries.

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Following the vandalism of a print of Immersion (Piss Christ) at the Collection Lambert art gallery in Avignon, Le Monde has some background on the Civitas Institute, the Catholic Right organisation which recently mobilised a protest against the artwork:

Pour le politologue Jean-Yves Camus, le discours qui évoque un traitement différencié des religions en France n’est pas neuf. Mais derrière ce combat, “c’est la soumission de l’ordre politique à l’ordre chrétien qui est l’objectif”. L’institut Civitas est lié, selon ce spécialiste de l’extrême droite, aux catholiques intégristes de la mouvance lefebvriste. Il considère Alain Escada comme “la vitrine, le simple porte-parole” du mouvement. “J’ai connu ce citoyen belge en tant que patron d’une petite librairie d’extrême droite à Bruxelles. C’est un personnage sans grande envergure et l’on peut affirmer sans s’avancer qu’il n’est pas la tête pensante de Civitas”, témoigne Jean-Yves Camus.

ln other words, Alain Escada, described as “secretary” of the movement, is seen by Jean-Yves Camus as no more than a front-man. Le Monde notes some other individuals associated with the organisation:

L’abbé Régis de Cacqueray, l’un des dirigeants du mouvement, appelle cependant les catholiques à un engagement municipal à l’occasion des élections de 2014 “pour le triomphe du Christ-Roi”.

…C’est en revanche dans les cercles beaucoup plus classique du militantisme intégriste que l’institut puise ses forces vives… Le président de l’institut n’est autre que l’amiral François de Penfentenyo.

La composition du comité de parrainage à l’hommage national à Jeanne d’Arc organisé par Civitas, le 8 mai à Paris, donne d’autres indications sur les personnalités proches du mouvement. On y trouve des gens parfois d’un haut niveau intellectuel et qui ont un long passé de militant, comme le relève Jean-Yves Camus : “Michel Olagnon est le président de la Fédération des scouts et guides Godefroy de Bouillon. Michel Fromentoux, qui milite aussi depuis les années 70, est un royaliste bien connu, rédacteur en chef de L’Action française 2000. On peut également évoquer Aymeric Chauprade, géopoliticien.”

Fr Régis de Cacqueray Valmenier is Superior of the District of France for the Society of Saint Pius X, the same Catholic traditionalist grouping to which Richard Williamson belongs; last year, he complained about Rabbi Rivon Krygier being allowed to give a lecture in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, stating that “The Paris cathedral is neither a synagogue nor a Masonic temple”. Olagnon’s scouting organisation is also an SSPX affiliate. Admiral François de Penfentenyo de Kervéréguin, meanwhile, is the son of Michel de Penfentenyo, a Catholic nationalist group who at one time headed Cité Catholique. In 2009, Aymeric Chauprade was fired from an academic position for expounding on 9/11 as an “American-Israeli conspiracy”.

Escada, meanwhile, may just be “le simple porte-parole” of Civitas, but he also runs another organisation, called Belgium and Christianity. The Belgian anti-fascist magazine ResistanceS has some background:

Reprise en main par Alain Escada, elle s’est très vite intégrée dans les rangs de l’extrême droite classique. Proche de la droite ultra, catholique et intégriste française (active au sein du Front national de Jean-Marie Le Pen), en 1995, Belgique et Chrétienté soutiendra la création du Front nouveau de Belgique (FNB), une dissidence du Front national de Daniel Féret. Alain Escada devint même membre de sa direction, comme porte-parole officiel. Ce « croisé » de L’Europe chrétienne passa néanmoins ensuite avec armes et bagages du côté du Front national, après un conflit personnel (et commercial !) avec la présidente du FNB, Marguerite Bastien.

…Le « patron » de Belgique et Chrétienté est aussi le fondateur de « Polémique-Info » Dans cette publication hebdomadaire d’extrême droite (aujourd’hui disparue), des écrits pronazis, rendant par exemple hommage à un ancien de la Légion SS Wallonie ou à l’association des Amis de Robert Brasillach (du nom du célèbre collaborateur de l’Occupant nazi pendant la Deuxième guerre mondiale), étaient réguliers. « Polémique-Info » ciblait en particulier la « Haute finance vagabonde et anonyme », terme codé dans la « littérature » antisémite pour désigner les Juifs. Ce journal deviendra la vitrine médiatique de Belgique & Chrétienté.

L’association Belgique et Chrétienté deviendra la « branche politique » de la Fraternité Saint-Pie X.

Returning to the subject of Immersion‘s vandalism, Escada says “Je ne condamne ni ne cautionne ce geste”. According to a notice on art gallery’s website, it is currently closed for security reasons.

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I first noticed this in the Guardian back in 2004; they’ve since fixed it, but the original caption still graces the website of Getty Images:

A Christian woman prays inside the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem 08 April 2004. Christian believers of all denominations mark the holy week of Easter in celebration of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. According to tradition the church is Jesus Christ’s final resting place.

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In November 2006, BBC Newsnight carried a report on the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, concentrating on its activities in Croydon in South London. The programme featured an anonymous source known only as “J”, who had apparently infiltrated the organisation on behalf of a private intelligence organisation called VIGIL. “J” explained that Hizb ut-Tahrir was not just religiously extreme – it acted like a street gang, indulging in petty crime:

We’ve been told that it’s alright to hurt non-believers… The loyalty to the group, I had to show it… they actually asked me to take some money from three guys… By force… I threatened them and they gave me the money because of who I was with… This is Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The accusation has been repeated since; just a few days ago, Duncan Gardham in the Telegraph reported that

In the past members of the group have been accused of encouraging street violence against non-Muslims…

However, although there are indeed serious reasons to be concerned about HuT’s influence, and its role in radicalising young Muslims, I haven’t been able to find any reports detailing specific instances of HuT-inspired street crime.

The Newsnight report ended with a remarkable coda:

Just as we thought our investigation was coming to an end, there was a major development. We were told that another source in HuT had uncovered a plot to attack a synagogue near Croydon. We can’t confirm this, as we did not have direct access to this source, but firebomb materials were found in this patch of woodland. When we tried to investigate, plain clothes police turned up within minutes and they confirmed that a police enquiry is underway.

Other media picked up on this; according to the European Jewish Press:

London’s Jewish community was on alert this week after bomb making equipment was discovered by police hidden close to a synagogue in the capital.

The items, believed to have included accelerants and rags which could be used to make petrol bombs, were uncovered on a road close to Croydon Synagogue.

The news was revealed in a BBC News television programme broadcast last week…

CST Head of Communications Mark Gardner told the Jewish News… that the CST had “no specific knowledge regarding the allegation that Hizb ut-Tahrir, or associated activists, were responsible for the threat to the synagogue”…

So what happened next? Plotting to burn down a synagogue is obviously an extremely serious matter, and in the context of an organised group has wide-ranging security ramifications. Yet the trail seems to have gone cold.

The lack of any follow-up is particularly strange given that the police were apparently closely monitoring the situation. I was recently forwarded a couple of emails that were written by Dominic Wightman, who ran VIGIL, prior to the Newsnight programme:

Today we got a “commendation” from the Jewsih Community trust and a Commander at Scotland Yard called Andre Ramsay…

…Plant in Hut highlighted upcoming attack by a group of HuT thugs on local synagogue. Molotov cocktails,sledgehammers, etc etc were discovered because of his info by the counter terrorism branch of scotland Yard working with Croydon police. The attack was planned for Sunday – bonfire night attack. Surveillance now in place and ringleader being tailed. Very exciting but scary at the same time – v.hard telling the cops no I will not give up our plant. Kemp helped. Jews very chuffed. Cops very apprehensive at first but called this pm and said “jolly good show”…

It should be noted that while HuT is anti-Jewish, no comparable HuT plot in the UK has come to light, either before or after November 2006 – “J”, it seems, just happened to have joined the right HuT cell at just the right time to have discovered a remarkably significant yet atypical HuT conspiracy.

As I have discussed in previous blog entries, I had some interaction with Wightman (who also uses the spelling “Dominic Whiteman”) during 2009; by this time VIGIL had collapsed and he was bankrupt, and he was keen for the blogger Tim Ireland and myself to “expose” another person, who he told us was responsible for contaminating VIGIL’s work with bogus information. Wightman was so keen, in fact, that he fabricated an attack document against Tim which he tried to pass off as this other person’s work. Since that scheme failed, Wightman has composed lengthy diatribes attacking Tim and me, published on his own website and under sock-puppet names on other sites. Their content and tone require little comment, but they serve to illustrate that this is not a person whose judgement or testimony should have been allowed to form the basis for decisions made by media, police, or politicians.

Of course, this background does not in itself invalidate “J”‘s testimony, and the discovery of materials close to the synagogue by the police suggests a real threat existed. But there are some basic questions:

– Why wasn’t the ringleader ever arrested or brought to trial, if the police were monitoring him?

– Why did the BBC talk of “another source in HuT” when Wightman’s email shows that it was the same source?

– Why wasn’t “J” arrested for mugging three people, or, at least, a warning given to Wightman that involvement in “undercover” antics does not give immunity to break the law and to endanger members of the public?

UPDATE: When I wrote the above, I was unaware that the BBC had assessed a complaint about Newsnight and an associated radio segment:

Newsnight, BBC2 & File on 4, Radio 4, 14 November 2006

Complaint

The programmes carried versions of a report on the activities of the Islamic organisation  Hizb ut-Tahrir, which drew on sources and information provided by Vigil, an organisation devoted to gathering intelligence in support of counter-terrorism. A representative of Hizb ut Tahrir challenged the reliability of Vigil and its supposed sources within the organisation and complained that a misleading impression of the organisation and its activities had been given.

Ruling

The programme-makers were entitled to rely on sources whose identity was known to them and whose accounts could be to some degree corroborated, and the overall picture presented was well supported by evidence. However, both programmes included a suggestion that Hizb ut-Tahrir (or a splinter group of its members) was responsible for planning a fire-bomb attack on a Croydon synagogue, based on information passed on by Vigil from a source not identified to the programme-makers. This was not a strong enough basis on which to mount such a serious allegation. In addition, File on 4 included an exchange in which the reporter seemed to be assuring a Home Office Minister that the programme had clear evidence that Hizb ut-Tahrir was in breach of the law on glorifying terrorism, whereas the programme’s evidence (though it gave legitimate grounds for concern) did not establish this point. 

Further action

The Editors of Newsnight and File on 4 discussed the issues arising from the ruling with their programme teams and the correspondent in question. They stressed the need for care in assessing and treating serious allegations from single unnamed sources and, in relation to
File on 4, the need for precision when framing questions, particularly when they relate to allegations about a third party.

Also, I have since asked for details about the incident from the police, under a Freedom of Information Request. The request was denied:

Although the incident described took place some five years ago we do not consider this matter to be resolved. We believe that the disclosure of the information relating to the suspicious items would have a negative effect on the community relationships and would subsequently compromise our law enforcement capabilities – reducing our ability to prevent and detect crime, which is the core principle of UK policing. Any disclosure that could disrupt the investigative process would not be in the public interest.

I don’t consider this to be satisfactory: how can the matter remain unresolved, when the police have supposedly been monitoring the the persons concerned? How could there be a “negative effect on… community relations”, given that Hizb-ut-Tahrir was named in the media at the time? The only “negative effect” I can envision is anger and dismay that the police had liaised with a private consultant who has since shown himself to be dishonest.

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Once again, Pastor Terry Jones forces himself into the news; the New York Times reports:

…Terry Jones… played the recording — which he said was made on Sept. 9 on his assistant’s iPhone — of a conversation between him and Imam Muhammad Musri, an Islamic leader in Florida. At the time, Mr. Musri was trying to persuade Mr. Jones not to burn the Korans as part of a demonstration on Sept. 11.After the Sept. 9 meeting, Mr. Jones announced that as part of a deal brokered by Mr. Musri to relocate a proposed Islamic center near ground zero in New York, he would not burn the 200 Korans. But almost immediately after the announcement, Mr. Musri, who had attended a news conference with Mr. Jones, told reporters that he had made no such deal and no such promise. The pastor, he said, had backed down because of pressure from President Obama and the rest of the world.

“This does definitely prove he lied to the news media and has lied the whole time,” Mr. Jones said from behind his desk, on which rested a pistol, a Bible and a rental copy of the film “Se7en.”

Musri insists that the recording is a fake, although it sounds real enough.

Jones announced the existence of the recording a couple of days ago while being interviewed by Jim Stach (or Jim Stachowiak), a rather alarming gentleman who styles himself as “the Michael Savage of Internet Radio” and who runs a website called Freedom Fighter Radio. Stach is a militia enthusiast (although from a bit of googling he seems to be a controversial figure even in those circles), and he appears from time to time as an interviewee on Russia Today. Stach’s posting of his chat with Jones is illustrated with a “Nuke Mecca” logo (1), and Stach is known to wear t-shirts bearing the same message.

Let’s hope that Jones’ new friendship with Stach pans out better than was the case with Prince Shannon Carson, a self-described militia leader who briefly offered Jones protection last August (blogged here, including a must-hear audio between Prince Shannon and Gen JC Christian).

However, the usual pattern is that Jones makes a link with some group or individual for mutual publicity-seeking purposes, but shortly afterwards there is a falling out. This was the case with the English Defence League back in December, and the same has now happened with a group that recently invited Jones to join a protest at a mosque in Dearborn. The Dearborn Patch reports:

Order of the Dragon President Frank Fiorello and Vice President Jammie Bothwell met with local religious leaders Saturday morning, but said that they had already decided before that meeting to cancel the protest, which would have been held on Good Friday.

…Fiorello explained Saturday that the Order’s decision to allow Jones to join them was made before he burned the Quran. After the act, the group took steps to distance themselves from the pastor–including publicly denouncing him.

“He’s a little off his rocker,” Fiorello said of Jones. “My honest opinion is that he’s going to hate gays, he’s going to hate Jews, he’s going to hate Muslims, he’s going to hate anybody until somebody realizes what he’s saying and they focus on it, then he’s going to do it all the more.”

(1)freedomfighterradio.net/2011/04/16/audio-evidence-of-musris-91010-lies-at-dr-terry-jones-press-conference-4162011/

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Last month, a report published by Political Research Associates highlighted some troubling trends in private “counter-terror” training being offered to law enforcement agencies in the USA; I blogged on the report here, quoting a Guardian piece about it. Articles on the same subject recently published by the Washington Monthly (see here and here) and the Washington Post  have prompted an expression of concern from Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins.

One group that featured in the PRA report was  Security Solutions International (SSI), which is headed by Henry Morgenstern; Morgenstern is the co-editor of Suicide Terror: Understanding and Confronting the Threat, which is published by Wiley and which comes with an endorsement from Benyamin Netanyahu. The PRA noted that one SSI expert used for training purposes is Dave Gaubatz, a controversial figure who has featured on this blog before: he is the co-author of Muslim Mafia, the main organiser of the “Mapping Shariah” project (alongside David Yerushalmi), and he plays a role in Pamela Geller’s Stop Islamization of America. He has also described Barack Obama as being a “crack-head”.

Morgenstern has dismissed PRA as “left-wing loony… composed mainly of former writers of High Times“, and he claims that CAIR is secretly behind any criticisms of SSI. However, it doesn’t look as though this is having much persuasive effect, and Morgenstern is now complaining about lost business in Seattle and Las Vegas:

You take a city like Seattle, which has a mayor, or had a mayor, I’m not sure if he’s still there, Mike McGinn… We had a programme for fusion centers, this is intelligence agencies, and the programme was about tools for fusion centers. Microsoft is one of the sponsors. We had these webinars scheduled… and CAIR picked up the phone, called the mayor, and said we’re a prejudiced group that [unclear] hatred against Arabs… He called the chief of police and… the pussy just pulled all his people out of the training… We just had another incidence in Las Vegas of the same thing.

Mortgenstern was speaking as a guest on Will and Mike Live [at 27:16], an internet radio programme co-hosted by Mike Riker of the International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association; the ICTOA has also come under critical scrutiny from the PRA, to large extent because of its use of Walid Shoebat as an expert.

As I’ve blogged previously, Shoebat’s utterances are so extravagant as to be absurd: he claims that he knows that Obama is a Muslim (“Islam could not defeat us by destroying the twin towers. But they are able to defeat us by sneaking in their man”), and he wishes that “nukes” would “take care” of the Muslim world. According the PRA report, as cited by the Guardian:

…In his presentation, called The Jihad Mindset and How to Defeat It: Why We Want to Kill You, he accused Muslim men of raping women, children and young boys. “They are paedophiles!” he shouted.

According to the report, Shoebat went on: “The Muslim beheads with a smile. You can see it on YouTube, on TV; the Afghan child trained to execute Christians. You say that Islam is a peaceful religion? Why? It hates the west.”

He also said: “Islam is a revolution and is intent to destroy all other systems. They want to expand, like Nazism.”

Shoebat also has second job visiting churches to warn of the coming Islamic Anti-Christ, based on a bizarre pseudo-analysis of the Book of Revelation.

It was the Shoebat’s association with the ICTOA which first brought the ICTOA to my attention; back in November, the ICTOA sponsored an “alternative” Fort Hood commemoration in Texas featuring Shoebat and Robert Spencer.

Riker continues to stand by Shoebat, although he has not felt the need to address any concerns about Shoebat’s rhetoric: instead, like Morgenstern, he concentrates on attacking the character of anyone who has made criticisms: this includes me for writing about the subject on this blog. As ever, the accusation is that because SSI and ICTOA are opposed to Islamic extremism, anyone raising concerns must be motivated by a wish to undermine attempts to oppose Islamic extremism. Even more bizarrely, Riker’s co-host on the programme, a man named Will Griffith, suggests that I’m receiving funding from George Soros.

Without citing the obvious at length: I’m not being paid to blog by Soros or by anyone else, and I would certainly welcome any competent training which would assist law-enforcement with tracking down Islamic extremists. But even if I really did have some secret malign intent, everything I write is based on materials that are in the public domain, and which other people can check for themselves. My interpretation is sceptical, but it is based on argument and evidence, not testimony – what kind of a person I might be is neither here nor there.

Similarly, I’m sure that Riker has served honourably and bravely as a police officer over the years, and that he means well – but his support for Shoebat shows bafflingly bad judgment.

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In May 2009 a document was posted on-line purporting to be an interview with Glen Jenvey conducted by Jeremy Reynalds, a right-wing journalist based in the USA. The document was for the most part an attack on Tim Ireland for unravelling the “Terror Target Sugar” fiasco, and it included “I know where you live”-type details. It was brought to the attention of Tim and me by the self-styled “terror-tracker” Dominic Wightman, who was a former associate of Jenvey; I give some background to the saga here. It should be recalled that in 2006 Wightman had been endorsed by Patrick Mercer MP, and Mercer had introduced Wightman to senior police at New Scotland Yard to discuss terrorism.

Reynalds confirmed to Tim that the document was a fake, and Wightman exhorted us to believe that a university lecturer named Michael Starkey had created it. However, rather than sounding off against Starkey, Tim instead went to the police, who traced it back to Wightman’s home via a broadband connection in his wife’s name. Wightman had a explanation, though; as Tim recalls:

Paul Wheeler (Farnham CID) told me that Wightman claimed not to be the author of this fake Jenvey/Reynalds interview that led police to his door; that he claimed to have merely uploaded it and genuinely thought it to be the work of… Reynalds. Wightman said this knowing that Reynalds denied it vehemently at the time, and that he (Wightman) had instead repeatedly tried to blame Starkey for it (while pretending to have ‘found’ the article on a site when he himself had uploaded it). Wightman knew I was deeply concerned about the fake interview, who was behind it, and what they might be capable of, and he chose not to confess or even alleviate my concerns in any way. Instead, he not only alerted me to it and repeatedly enhanced any concerns I may have had about it, but repeatedly tried to suggest that Starkey was behind it.

We also discovered that Wightman’s attempt to smear Starkey as the author had been driven by a desire for revenge: Starkey and Wightman had formerly been in contact, but Starkey had discovered that Wightman was dishonest.

In an email to me, Wightman refused to divulge where he had supposedly found the fake interview:

I did not write that article, no. It was offered from somewhere else but I’d rather not give that away at this stage. I will. There were far worse on offer, put it that way.

In the weeks that followed, Wightman began to write long abusive tirades on his website, explaining that his purpose all along had been to entrap Tim and me as collaborators with Islamic extremists.

Wightman’s denials were always ludicrous: he had admitted to lying to us, and he was unable to say where the document “was offered from”. In the time that has followed, Wightman’s attacks on Tim have tended to have obvious resonances with the “voice” of the interview’s pseudo-Jenvey. But what about evidence? As Tim notes:

the creator of the original [falsified interview] Word .DOC document was ‘Adninistrator‘ (note spelling), and… it was created on 12 May 2009 23:09:00, the fourth and final writing task involving 66 Minutes of editing time…

A few days ago, Adrian Morgan (a former associate of Wightman who became disgusted when he discovered Wightman’s methods) sent Tim and me some Word documents that he had received from Wightman some time previously: and once again, the author is “Adninistrator”. Wightman wasn’t just given the fake interview: he had created the document in which it was uploaded, and the fact he had spent more than an hour editing it is strongly suggestive that he didn’t just cut-and-paste it from somewhere else.

Also of interest: in early 2010 I received a series of emails from a sockpuppet account controlled by Charlie Flowers or an associate; as I’ve blogged previously, Flowers had formerly worked with Wightman, although they fell out when Flowers eventually realised he’d been manipulated (to save face Flowers has continued with an independent campaign of abuse against Tim and me). The first of the emails included a Word document called “Hitlist for 2010”, as well as some other materials (including the name of someone to whom Wightman purportedly owed money). The “hitlist” consisted of a list of Islamists, along with a few other names, such as Tim Ireland, Justice Eady, and Sir John Starkey; Sir John is Michael’s brother and a former member of  Patrick Mercer’s constituency committee (Wightman sees both Starkeys as responsible for creating a rift between himself and Mercer). I forwarded the email to Wightman. His reply:

Love the hitlist! Never had a creditor called Hughes. And last reminder – cease and desist communication with me. Ta.

The list may have been concocted by someone else, but Wightman is given as the author in the properties, and it was again last modified (in February 2009) by “Adninistrator”.

Adrian has also forwarded to me a bizarre email from December 2009, in which Wightman suggested creating blog in the guise of an “African High Priest” and making contact with various Africans I have written about. The idea was that this blog would be used to make “outlandish religious comments”, leading me to write about the priest. After this, “Damian Thompson picks up on it and mainstream press”, at which point the denouement would occur: a posting purporting to show that either I had created the “African High Priest” myself or been manipulated into it in some way. The scheme was of course a feverish fantasy, inspired by a pathological need to feel empowerment through manipulation: Wightman claims to know Thompson, but this it’s doubtful that Thompson has ever heard of me or would have any interest in an “African High Priest” making “outlandish religious comments”. However, as I blogged a few weeks ago, someone echoing Flowers’ abusive lies about me has recently tried to pose as someone associated with some Nigerian Pentecostals I’ve written about.

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