Bartholomew's Notes

Tim Ireland has an update on the on-going campaign of semi-anonymous harassment which has been going on for a year or so now:

…Recently, someone involved in this ongoing campaign of harassment began publishing material targeting my wife, my children, and other members of my extended family.

This has included false accusations aimed at my kids, making specific allegations of criminal behaviour that are not only entirely untrue, but extremely damaging (and, it must be said, upsetting).

The accusations were made anonymously on a site which I have seen.

The back-story is somewhat complex, but, as I have blogged previously, the campaign began after Tim exposed the bogus origins of an Islamic terrorist scare story which appeared in the Sun in January last year. The story had been concocted from evidence planted on an Islamic forum by Glen Jenvey, who took revenge for the exposure by making anonymous postings accusing Tim of being a wanted paedophile; whether this was his own idea or was fed to him by someone else remains unclear. Around the same time, sinister “I know where you live” type comments were received from two or more individuals hiding behind fake names but associated with a musician named Charlie Flowers (in particular, Flowers’ associates are a man named Matthew Edwards and an as yet unidentified woman). After a few months, Jenvey – who has mental health problems – apologised and went off-line.

While all this was going on, Tim and I were contacted by Dominic Wightman, who knew both Flowers and Jenvey in association with his now-defunct VIGIL Network. Wightman tried to manipulate us into writing about another man, against whom it transpired Wightman has a grudge, and after Tim and I both wrote about this experience, Tim was then targeted for direct harassment once again. Twitter and other sites were used to publicise his home address, along with threats of violence and the promise that he would be forced to “go back to Australia”. Flowers has claimed that he was involved in this not because of Tim’s writings about Wightman, but because he was offended by Tim’s public controversies with an MP named Nadine Dorries (Wightman also denies any link). A few anonymous attacks were also made in my direction – indeed, just a few days ago I received a comment from someone calling themselves Cam Woodhead, making a crude sexual comment in relation to my posts on the subject.

The focus of Tim’s current post on the subject is the way in which some of his political opponents have helped to foster this situation. Tim presses his point quite aggressively in political debate, and one strategy to deflect his forensic deconstructions is to suggest that attention to detail is evidence of an obsessive nature. Pressing the point further can then be dismissed as “stalking”. It appears that Jenvey self-justified his anonymous attacks with reference to comments about Tim which had appeared on Iain Dale’s political blog; Dale only quietly removed these comments belatedly, and after accusing Tim of threatening him. Also, Tim had hoped to get the support of Patrick Mercer, an MP who had links with Jenvey and Wightman, and he asked Dale to contact Mercer on his behalf:

Iain Dale was at the time in a unique position to get word directly to Patrick Mercer. He agreed to do this, then did the exact opposite of what was requested, then claimed he had called Mercer… Dale has not gone public with any account that seeks to justify his behaviour in this respect; privately, he shares one of three different excuses…

but while Dale refuses to discuss what he said to Mercer when he eventually did contact him, Mercer obviously became hostile from this point on…

Mercer had relied on Jenvey-sourced material for a number of tabloid soundbites, and it suited him to have Tim regarded as a stalker (Mercer recently repeated the strategy in an accusation against his own ex-mistress).

A damaging role has also been played by Nadine Dorries MP, whom Tim has attacked and satirised on numerous occasions. As as I  blogged in May, Dorries retaliated by seeking  to portray a mocking Tweet as some kind of death threat, and when she later closed down her blog she claimed that she had been advised to do so following the stabbing of Stephen Tims MP – the implication being that she was in physical fear of Tim. This was despite the fact that she had closed her blog down a week before Tims had been stabbed.

At one point Dorries hinted that she had received information from some of those who were harassing Tim and had passed it on to the police; however, she later clarified that in fact she had made a police complaint about Tim, not on his behalf. This was mysterious, since, as Tim writes:

…police procedure is to interview the accused party/parties before proceeding with the expense of a full-blown investigation. I know this having been a target of harassment myself; I have never been convicted, investigated, cautioned, or even informally chatted to by police about any criminal behaviour…

In other words, it is convenient to make the cry of “stalker”, but none of those who do so are willing to test their allegations by involving either the courts or the police. And meanwhile, it’s open season on Tim – and now on his family.

I know that Tim can be controversial – but he advances his cause through words and deeds that he is willing to put his name to. He d0esn’t hide behind fake names and IDs, and he is responsible and careful with private data. He doesn’t threaten people with violence, and he’s not a party hack. In short, he doesn’t hit below the belt.

I would hope that Dale and Dorries don’t go so far as actually to take pleasure from the difficulties that Tim is facing, although clearly it’s useful for them: it distracts him from other projects, and the complex backstory to the saga means that it can be difficult to grasp an overview of the situation. The more that Tim is forced to explain and complain, the more they point and mock him as an obsessive. Either way, though, they are in a position to be of help, but instead have chosen to twist the knife in. How exactly do they sleep at night?

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Staying with Loonwatch, a new article at the site notes the existence of Veteran Defenders of America, an newish outgrowth of ACT! For America (it was announced in May, although its website carries a 2008 dateline). There’s a quote from “Richard Van Waes, founder and operating chair person”, who explains that:

Quite simply, unlike any period in our long history, our freedoms are in jeopardy. Our domestic borders have been silently invaded with people who intend to harm us. There are thousands of terrorists and terror cells within the United States borders who have one goal as their agenda – the destruction of America as we know it. This simply cannot take place.

…You, as a veteran, have training, skills and experience that uniquely enable you to respond to our government’s message that encourages family and community preparedness, citizen awareness and service to our families and our communities.

The “honorary chairman” of the advisory council is retired Maj. General Paul E. Vallely. However, aside from him, Van Waes, and of course ACT!’s Brigitte Gabriel, details of who else may be involved are scarce.

From googling around, though, one other name has come up: a certain ex-Navy man named Gerard Keenan. According to his Facebook profile:

Mr. Keenan is a founding member and press officer of the non-profit IC-HUMINT (Intelligence Community-Human Intelligence) organization based in Scotland & Netherlands (being relocated to Israel) (www.ic-humint.net)… and is a member of ACT America, Long Island Chapter (American Congress for Truth), NY State Sheriff’s Association Institute, US Navy Fleet Reserve Association, the Liberty Counsel, and Veteran Defenders of America.

It seems more likely that Keenan is a paying member of VDA rather than involved at an operational level, but the association is worth noting as I’ve come across “IC-HUMINT” previously: this was in 2006, when it announced a brief association with Dominic Wightman‘s “VIGIL Network”. At that time, IC-HUMINT carried a very weird notice about “a global network to form an army to fight the Evil-World to come and to serve for the glory of Jerusalem, the city of GOD!” In 2007, this was replaced with a profile of Keenan (also known as Jerry Keenan) and a list of associate members, although “only those that have requested to be included” were provided. The list included the SAS, the Israeli Defence Forces, and British Intelligence. The reference to VIGIL disappeared, and at the VIGIL website any association with IC-HUMINT was denied.

Earlier versions of the now-removed IC-HUMINT website (see on Wayback here and here) give Keenan as the “Press Officer” and a certain Sean Elias as in charge of “Oversight”;  a UK mobile phone number was given as contact for Elias. According to a potted history from a 2004 version of the site,

During the many years of real time experiences we have built a large contact group with official gov/mil members, contracts and various associates from all over the world. To be able to better serve and maintain this exclusive group, several members of the ‘British American Friends’ have centralized this group online and called it the IC-HUMINT Group.

A later version has the tagline “Monitored by the British American Friends © 2005”. The history goes on to explain that the group was founded in 1991 in North Africa, and that group members were then sent “to former Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Belgrado” as well as to “the Baltics States, Romania and Russia” . From 1997 a secured online presence was established, called the World Security Net, but following “several mass attacks” on the network it was decided to “disclose the entire section” and to change the name to IC-HUMINT. A look through various old forums brings up a certain “Steve” as the liason officer, and Elias described himself as “Head of Operations” at World Security Net (very little on Wayback). Keenan also runs “GPKeenan Co. Int’l Security Services” as a subsidiary of an outfit called Executive Assets (old Geocities website on Wayback here).

Although the IC-HUMINT dotnet website appears to be defunct, visiting a dotcom version of site brings up an empty page titled “Camp Joshua 2010” for a moment before the broken link page again appears. A few automatic sites have captured the phrase “CAMP JOSHUA 2010. Service Verification Jerusalem 2010”, whatever that might mean.

Of course, there is no indication that the VDA has any interest in any of this. However, the VDA website does carry an advert for a 2010 “Spy Cruise” organised by Vallely’s own Stand up America organisation, at which former CIA operatives and directors are billed as speakers.

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Here’s one I missed from a couple of months ago: Loonwatch notes various pictures posted on the Facebook page of Stop Islamization of America, including one that purports to be associated with military servicepeople:

Why does a certain comedy sketch come to mind?

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A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that Steven Emerson had “unearthed” thirteen hours of “audio tape” of Faisel Rauf, containing material that was both “shocking” and “explosive”:

Among the shocking revelations Emerson’s team will reveal next week — they found Rauf:

Defending wahhabism – a puritanical version of Islam that governs Saudi Arabia

Calling for the elimination of Israel by claiming a one-nation state, meaning no more Jewish State.

Defending Bin Laden’s violence

Although this caused much excitement, some of us were able to cast our minds back a whole six weeks or so to the previous time a conservative pundit had released an “explosive” recording of someone speaking; the results had not been encouraging.

And indeed, Emerson’s “discoveries” failed to deliver the goods. Most of the “exposé” turned out to be a public lecture which Rauf gave in Australia in 2005, which was freely available anyway as an mp3 from a university website; the only new material was a 2006 13-minute talk with a journalist named Mark Sommers, made when Rauf thought he was off-mic,  but there was nothing there which exposed him as  being a secret extremist. Overall, Emerson’s “revelations” turned out  to be nothing more than his own extrapolations from Rauf’s public political views – views which we all knew anyway – to an extremist motivation.

However, various sites, having hyped Emerson, struggled to make the best of it: at WND the shameless Aaron Klein seized on Emerson’s gloss on Rauf’s one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict to give the impression that Rauf had used the word “eradication” in relation to Israel (incidentally, it should be recalled that Klein and other conservatives who affect outrage at Rauf’s one-state preference themselves object to a two-state solution, for other reasons). In one quote from the 2005 lecture, Rauf discusses prejudice, observing that “If gender is not what distinguishes us we’ll look at skin colouring and say: niggers or whities, or whatever”; clutching at straws, this was headlined around the net as “Imam Rauf Drops The N Word”.

The off-mic discussion even included a point that Pamela Geller, who was Emerson’s primary conduit, was forced to contradict: that Rauf doesn’t “want a demographic Islamic state”.  Geller assured her readers that this was a lie and an example of “stealth jihad”, but a secret recording in which Rauf continues to present himself as a moderate in private is somewhat lame as an exposé. Geller, as expected, milked the subject of Emerson’s audios more than anyone, but even she’s moved onto other subjects and the topic has failed to gain momentum.

Meanwhile, Walid Shoebat has tried to get in on the act, with awful disclosures of his own taken from Rauf’s statements in Arabic. His first attempt at this was in June, and he appeared on Fox in mid-August, warning that Rauf’s

…support of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic jihad movement has been expressed by him in the Arabic language. His manifesto ha s been expressed by – in Al-Ghad newspaper, and hadielislam.com, in several news media. In fact, Americans should listen to this. He says that the trend toward Islamic law and justice begins by religious movements like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic resistance. This is a straight support for terrorism.

Media Matters has some background on this:

We asked Ahmad Moussalli, a widely quoted expert on Islamic movements and professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut, to read the Arabic sources Shoebat cited on August 18 (they can be found here and here) and to evaluate his claim that they show “a straight support for terrorism” and for “Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic jihad movement.” Moussalli responded that Shoebat’s remarks are a “blatant misrepresentation of the denotation and connotation of Mr. Rauf’s statements in Hadielislam and Al-Ghad newspaper. Rauf never expressed his support for the three organizations.”

Omid Safi, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina and expert on Sufism, also reviewed the Arabic articles and concluded that “they do not show any support for terrorism.” Safi added that “the accusation of ‘Muslim double-speak’ is one of the common accusations used by Islamaphobes like Shoebat” and said: “I would simply suggest dismissing what comes out of his mouth as much as I would dismiss anything David Duke would have to say about the essential nature of Judaism.”

Of course, Rauf has made statements and holds positions that are controversial and arguable. But if his opponents are so convinced of his essential malice, why the constant recourse to distorted quotes and sensationalised stunts?

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On 4 August I blogged on Pastor Terry D. Jones’ book Islam is of the Devil, which had just been published by Creation House. The imprint was of interest: while Jones appeared to be a marginal figure, allied to Fred Phelps but repudiated by everyone else because of his plans for a Koran book-burning, Creation House is owned by the influential neo-Pentecostal media empire Strang Communications. It seemed to me that perhaps Jones, who had been part of the controversial Maranatha organisation in the 1980s, was not as far out on the fringe as he appeared.

However, I also asked whether Creation House was now embarrassed by the association with Jones. I observed:

Mention of the book on the company’s website is confined to a small entry in a pdf catalogue, and an associated Creation  House Facebook page has recently deleted several messages from one of Jones’ fellow pastors at Dove, Wayne Sapp.

A couple of days after I wrote that, Creation House quietly revised its catalogue and scrubbed the book; although the old edition is still available from the link above, it’s an orphan document which someone forgot to remove. The Creation House frontpage links to the new version, which is almost exactly the same as the previous one except for page 19, where Islam is of the Devil has been replaced with a title by another author, entitled Snakes in the Pulpit. Meanwhile, the book is listed as “temporarily out of stock” on Amazon.

Jones, like his spiritual brother Fred Phelps, is a desperate attention-seeker: last year it was an “Islam is of the Devil” sign outside his church, and members of the congregation joined the Rifqa Bary circus while wearing t-shirts bearing the same message. His planned Koran bonfire for 11 September has brought him international attention, although he’s still keen to come up with new stunts to keep himself and his church in the limelight. His latest effort is a new video, in which he opines that the word “nigger” is not racist because (take a deep breath) “there’s white niggers, and there’s black niggers. A nigger is how you act”. Pastor Wayne Sapp then follows up with a different message, delivered in a weird passive-aggressive style: he explains that no-one should use the word, because it’s “demeaning” and “degrading”; however, it’s unfair that black comedians are allowed to use it, and he rails against the “double standard” of racism which this supposedly exposes. Bizarrely, the video ends with a snippet from the Pink Floyd song Goodbye Cruel World.

As well as being dropped by Creation House, Jones recently lost the support of a certain “Prince Shannon Carson”, who had previously promised to lead a militia to protect the church against Muslims. Gen J.C. Christian had a chat with him a few days ago.

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Following CNN’s three-part series on child-witch stigmatisation in Akwa Ibom in Nigeria (see here, here, and here), State Governor Godswill Akpabio has now been given right of reply on the channel in an interview with Becky Anderson:

He said he signed a bill into law in 2008 that makes it a criminal offense, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to label a child a witch.

“That brought the situation immediately under control,” said Akpabio.

Akpabio said nobody has been convicted of witchcraft-related abuse so far under the new law. He said five people have been charged and are making their ways through the legal process.

…The governor attacked a report sent to the United Nations from Stepping Stones Nigeria, a group that works with local street children. The study uncovered evidence of a large number of children in Akwa Ibom accused of witchcraft being taken to forests and killed, washed in acid, burned and buried alive.

“That report is part of the media propaganda against the state and it was done for pecuniary reasons,” said Akpabio.

He also cast doubt on whether various reports, made by the media and nongovernmental organizations, were using different children to tell their stories.

“I need to know why the same set of children are being shown all over the world with the same story,” he said. “These children are being used for monetary reasons,” Akpabio said.

The child who was “washed in acid” was reported in the media with photographic evidence last year – perhaps Akpabio thinks it doesn’t count, as it occured across the border in Cross River State.

Akpabio’s attack on Stepping Stones follows the same line as that given by State spokesman Aniekan Umanah in the third part of the CNN series. Like Umanah, Akpabio does not go into any detail, although he presumably has in mind Babajide Kolade-Otitoju’s hackwork accusations against the organisation –  I dealt with those here. It’s particularly disappointing to see what amounts to a volte face, since – as Akpabio also mentions – he had previously visited the hostel featured in the CNN series and made a donation; this hostel is run by the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) and supported by Stepping Stones, and Akpabio’s visit came after the hostel had been raided by police at the behest of evangelist Helen Ukpabio’s lawyer Victor Ukutt (Ukutt, incidently, stopped by at this blog a few days ago). Ukpabio, who is a powerful figure in the state, claims that the hostel is run by a “wizard”, and she warned Akpabio to “remember what happened to Saddam Hussein”.

UPDATE: Stepping Stones responds:

Stepping Stones Nigeria entirely refutes the allegations made by the Governor in this interview. All of our accounts are entirely transparent and are available online. Our 2009/2010 accounts will be added in the next few weeks. We will continue to work tirelessly to protect and uphold the rights of Nigerian children.

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The good Christians of the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow uncover a new outrage:

According to The Associated Press, the Obama administration plans to spend nearly $6 million in American tax dollars to restore 63 historic and cultural sites around the world, including mosques and minarets in 55 countries. The projects include $76,000 for a 16th century mosque in communist China, $67,000 for a mosque in Pakistan, and numerous others.

A quote from Gary Bauer follows:

…”If anything like that was happening under a Republican or a conservative administration or government, the ACLU would be going nuts [and] all the major newspapers would be writing front page stories about it,” he observes.

“This is unacceptable,” he continues. “The United States taxpayer should not have their hard-earned money going to build mosques and minarets in China, in Pakistan, and other places around the world. It’s unconstitutional, and it needs to stop immediately”

The story has also been picked up by some other conservative websites; WorldNetDaily‘s headline screams that “U.S. paying millions to fund mosques around world”.

The money is being disbursed through the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, which was established by Congress in 2001. The Fund’s annual reports can all be seen here; it has been giving small grants for historic buildings and artefacts, including mosques, since then without provoking any controversy, let alone “the ACLU going nuts” or any “front page stories”. The 2001 report’s preface, by Patricia S. Harrison (the Bush-appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs), explains that

As Congress intended, the Ambassador’s Fund allows us to show another side of America—one that recognizes the contributions of cultures in other countries that enrich us all. Heritage preservation allows us to work closely with our international partners, and to affirm our respect for other cultures as we jointly identify areas in critical need of preservation.

The Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation successfully demonstrates in concrete, visible ways, the U.S. commitment to understanding and preserving the heritage of others. Whether it is the preservation of ancient Islamic manuscripts, a historic monument of importance to a nation, or traditional music or language needed to sustain indigenous groups in modern times, U.S. Ambassadors have identified unique ways in which to achieve what Congress intended.

For reasons best known to itself, OneNewsNow has chosen to illustrate its story with a famous anti-Muslim poster created by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), even though new mosques for Muslim immigrants in Switzerland plays no part in the Ambassadors Fund’s grants:

Perhaps we should be grateful that they didn’t use this alternative SVP poster:

In January 2009, OneNewsNow whipped up a hsyeria around the announcement that the US was planning to fund some archaeological restoration work at the site of Babylon.

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A few days ago, as has been widely reported, a Gaineville-based militia group called Right Wing Extreme has backed away from its offer to “protect” the Dove World Outreach Center (I blogged on the church here) during its planned International Burn A Koran Day. Right Wing Extreme’s website carries a press release:

After much thought and prayer the organization’s leadership determined this event does not glorify GOD in way that leads the lost to Jesus Christ. “We also believe the liberal media is intentionally using stories such as the burning of the Koran to distract, divide, and enrage the public says the organization’s leadership.

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” James 1:19

…Dove World Outreach are our brothers and sisters in Christ. However we ask that they not hold this event for the reason that it may diminish the work of the Holy Spirit to witness to Muslims.

The press release also explains the militia’s name:

Right Wing Extreme was founded in April of 2009 after the Department of Homeland Security’s report titled Right Wing Extremism. The report labeled those who are against Illegal Immigration, abortion, higher taxation, returning military veterans, big government, and Christian groups as Right Wing Extremist and put them on a watch list. The report was sent out to all law enforcement agencies in April 2009 and the group has been recruiting members ever since.

The “group” – presuming there is more than just one publicity-seeking member – describes itself as “Armed Christian Conservative”, and its leader is a certain Prince Shannon Carson, who has a show on BlogTalkRadio called Right Wing Radio (formerly the Loose Cannon Show).

Prince Shannon’s relationship with Dove World is now perhaps somewhat strained; Dove member Fran Ingram has left a message on the Extreme Right Wing forum, sniffing that “I cannot believe you wrote your latest press release. I call it totally cowardly.”

However, Prince Shannon has some new friends, and he made contact with a kindred spirit – none other than General J.C. Christian (Patriot). In the telephone call posted below, Shannon explains to the General that the government is trying to provoke patriots into “lone wolf” attacks on government buildings, so that it can bring in gun control laws; the Prince, however, is trying to restrain people until there’s sufficient numbers and a “clear direction, and something clear that we’re gonna do” . The General, in turn, commends the value of naked Spartan wrestling for male bonding, and asks the Prince to send him some pubic shavings.

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As is being widely reported, Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally saw Beck share the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with “240 men and women of all faiths”, whom he identified – along with “thousands” of other clergy – with the “Black Robe Regiment” of pro-Revolutionary preachers. This follows on from the “pastors and preachers panel” which he assembled in July, where the subject came up during the conversation:

TOM MULLINS, SENIOR PASTOR, CHRIST FELLOWSHIP: Well, Glenn, you know, in the Revolutionary War days, we had the Black Robe Regiment, ministers standing up from the pulpit. And the cries we heard in the streets of America were first heard in pulpits of America. And the people were educated from the biblical principles of what life and liberty is all about.

BECK: What was the — what was the thundering voice? Who said — Sam Adams.

[DAVID] BARTON: John Adams. John Adams called it the pulpit thunder. It was his description of it and it was the black regiment — the Black Robe Regiment.

…BECK: Black Robe Regiment. There it is…

The panel also included the apocalyptic conspiracy-theorist John Hagee, and Hagee offered prayers the evening before the rally, at Beck’s “Divine Destiny” event (whether the opening quote-mark should aso encompass Beck’s name remains unclear). Also present at “Divine Destiny” was Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a long-time associate of the Christian Right. Beck also includes moderate Muslims among his “Regiment”, although it’s unclear whether he has anyone specific in mind.

Beck isn’t the first modern conservative to invoke the “Black Robe Regiment”, or “Black Robed Regiment”; the Constitution Party’s Chuck Baldwin has been appealing for Pastors to identify with a “Black Regiment” for several years now, and a holding website for the movement (bizarrely including an image of John Wesley) can be seen here. There is an alternative “Black Robed Regiment” based in Tennessee with a website here; the site identifies with Beck’s event, but does not appear to have any official association. The site emphasises the example of a Revolutionary preacher named Peter Muhlenberg, and it includes a sentimental picture of Muhlenberg ripping open his clerical garb at the pulpit, Superman-like, to reveal a military uniform beneath. It seems doubtful that either group would wish become an interfaith venture, even though many conservative Christians (but not all) are willing to overlook or even defend Beck’s Mormonism to jump on the bandwagon.

UPDATE: Beck’s new website, The Blaze, has a photo gallery of “The Black Robe Regiment: The Clergy of 8/28“.

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Over the past year, I have received a number of email messages from persons using fake or misleading identities. The motive appears to have been to try to manipulate my writing, or to fish either for information or for some quote which could be used against me. Usually, an IP proxy was used. Here’s the list:

1) 14 August 2009: An email arrives in the name of Paul Ray. Ray, as I’ve blogged a number of times, is the self-styled “spiritual leader” of the English Defence League, although he has been marginalised from the movement. This email is not from Ray, but from someone faking his identity and using a similar email address. The message directs me to a website which has reposted some of Ray’s blog posts along with a new posting praising the neo-Nazis of Stormfront. Whoever did this obviously wanted me to write a bogus exposé, but they may also have been playing a double game: the new posting aped Glen Jenvey’s dyslexic writing style, so this may also have an attempt to spread discord between Jenvey and Ray or to manipulate me into writing something about Jenvey. A few weeks later, the real Ray complained on his site that someone had planted fake messages in his name on the RevolutionMuslim website.

2) 12 January 2010: The first of a series of emails arrives from “77 Truthseeker”, who signs himself “Kelvin”. He claims to have a number of documents concerning Dominic Wightman, and he explains that they were passed to him via email from a certain “mebsy786” in response to a request for information left on a real-world notice board at “Library House”, a squat-cum-community centre in south London. I play along for a while, and “Kelvin” comes out with all kinds of supposed  inside information about Charlie Flowers, the “Cheerleaders”, and “P-Group”, including purported real names, and warning me that they are dangerous. Whatever question I ask, “Kelvin” has a ready answer.

3) 5 March 2010: An email arrives from someone asking me about Farah Damji’s links with the “Cheerleaders”. The email is signed with the initials of someone who had previously been targeted for “Cheerleader” harrassment in relation to Damji, but again it’s a fake.

4) 18 August 2010: An email arrives in the name of a Muslim woman asking me how “the hacker group known as the Cheerleaders” had managed to delete a Facebook page she supposedly helped to admin, called the “Rise of Khudi”. This was a Hizb ut Tahrir-related Facebook page which did exist and which was deleted recently. Presumably the idea was that I would write back and this would expose me as someone who works with Muslim extremists. This email address also contained the number “786”.

UPDATE (30 August) : Unsurprisingly, Flowers has now created an anonymous attack blog accusing me of being a member of the far left and of being in league with Islamic extremists. This is part of Flowers’ mental syndrome: when challenged or criticised, he reasserts his sense of self-empowerment with on-line creepiness that anyone with a bit of dignity would consider too demeaning to engage in. As I’ve said before, this isn’t so much a matter of politics as a case of psychological dysfunction.

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