Bartholomew's Notes

CORRECTIONS: The original version of this blog post included a picture featuring a person whom I misidentified as being Matthew Kaplan. I have amended the post as a result of this error having been brought to my attention. Also, Darren Marsh is a member of UKIP , not the English Democrat Party. I had assumed an EDP connection due to his association with Bill Baker and from photographs of him alongside EDP paraphernalia. Apologies for both errors.

A few days ago a post on Talk Islam suggested a link between Charlie Flowers, the “Cheerleader” gang of cyber-bullies and the English Defence League. I was sceptical of the evidence provided, but for reasons of his own Flowers has now decided to resolve the issue – see picture here.

That’s Flowers to the left, with the EDL’s Joel Titus the middle and Darren Marsh to the right. It’s not much of a scoop; Flowers knows that I keep an eye on the “Cheerleadered” Facebook page, where this picture appeared, and that publicity from me would be inevitable. A few days ago I was sent an email from an anonymous source claiming that “the Cheerleaders are now organising regular meets in town between journalists, EDL, and the Muslim Debate Initiative”.

Titus was featured in a recent article about the EDL that appeared in Searchlight, posted here:

Joel Titus, the violent teenage leader of the EDL’s youth wing, has voiced loud concern, along with several other members of “the inner circle”, over the glib acceptance of known nazis… Following a recent demonstration in London, EDL supporters led by Titus clashed with Nazi-saluting Chelsea hooligans, leaving one of the Chelsea fans hospitalised. It is reported that Titus now wears a stab vest in fear of reprisals following threats made on the Stormfront nazi web forum…

Titus was cautioned by the police last month after hitting a photographer; he was also featured in a recent Daily Mail article:

He sticks to the ‘peaceful movement’ mantra but a text I later receive from him ahead of an EDL demo in London reveals his involvement with the hooligans. It reads: ‘Right lads, the “unofficial” meet for the 31st (London) is going to be 12 o’clock at The Hole In The Wall pub just outside Waterloo Station. I will be there just before that. Remember lads were (sic) going as Casuals Utd and if you could obtain a poppy to wear it would make us look good even if we are kicking off. lol. Cheers lads. Joel “Arsenal” Titus.’

Flowers and his friends, meanwhile, claim to be pro-Muslim but anti-Islamic extremist; this is at odds with much of the rhetoric of the EDL, which has played lip service to the same distinction between ordinary Muslims and extremists but which in practice has  been simply anti-Muslim, with banners such as “No More Mosques“, caps bearing the word “Infidel”, and the use of Crusader imagery (1). Perhaps Titus sees a link with Flowers and the “Cheerleaders” as a way to move forward his vision of a more moderate EDL; Flowers runs a music band called the Fighting Cocks, which purports to oppose Islamic extremism. The band’s website contains the following statement:

The West’s cultural weapons of mass destruction – rock music, videos, blue jeans, iPods, internet including pornography, etc.- are quite enough to bring down military jihad Islam over time. So is the picture of Western decadent luxury. Contain them so they cannot expand; defend the borders; and allow the market place to work on the rest. If they choose to keep out Western influences they will end up like Burma and North Korea; if they don’t, the Cultural Weapons of Mass Destruction and the promise of earthly delights will have their way on their youth… Radical Islam and the culture death shouldn’t be more attractive to young people than what we can offer.

Above this statement is a link to the Center on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare in the USA and to the login page of a secure US governmental site; the other side of Flowers and his friends is that they like to play pranks on Islamic extremists, and they have contructed an elaborate network of references to intelligence terms and agencies in other to create the impression of being “cyber-warriors” of some sort. On Facebook, they have created a number of pseudonymous identities, which form the basis for groups such as “the Cheerleaders” and the “Hur al-Ayn”.

However, while much of this is trivial, they engage in other, less savoury activities. In September I received an email from one “Cheerleader” containing a direct death threat against a named Muslim extremist, and, as I have outlined in a number of posts, they have conducted a campaign of harassment against the blogger Tim Ireland. This is a long story, but it begins at the end of 2008 when Flowers contacted me (using an alias) to say that he used to work with the now-defunct  Vigil Network – this was a supposed “terror-tracker” intelligence group run by Dominic Wightman (see here for background). The Vigil Network had also used Glen Jenvey, whom Tim exposed a year ago as the author of bogus postings to Muslim websites that he then used to create tabloid scare stories. After Tim publicised this and I wrote some follow-up posts, the “Cheerleaders” left annoying goading comments on our sites, and engaged in various forms of creepy behaviour (contacting my Facebook friends, hand-delivering a letter for me at a former workplace – Flowers seems to get enjoyment from the sense of power this kind of thing gives him). Wightman also contacted us, and provided us with an audio interview with Jenvey which Flowers had made in the guise of a journalist. However, Wightman also lied to us in an attempt to get us to write about someone against whom he had a grudge, and when the truth was discovered things turned nasty. The “Cheerleaders” published Tim’s home address on-line widely, in the stated hope that he would be forced to leave the country, and there were threats such as “machete to your throat”. There were also attempts to sow confusion; a blog was created in Wightman’s name and made to look as though the “Cheerleaders” had hacked it, thus creating an impression of distance from Wightman (and Wightman insists he has no link to the “Cheerleaders”). Flowers also threatened to come to Tim’s house for a fight, and more recently he distastefully made a “gypsy curse” threat against Tim’s family.

It seems likely that the “Cheerleaders” have been involved with all kinds of pranks with fake IDs on Muslim websites for some time, as this early comment to Tim’s site suggests:

As for commenting on bait being used as a catch, you mean what Glen did? Yep he let his OPSEC drills get slack and forgot, in his haste to set up a story that would sell, to mask his IP. Glen is a clever and able guy but it seems in this case he’s let greed and ego get in the way, maybe. Also he probably didn’t have to write the leading questions that he did, with people like Saladin1970 around they could have bitten anyway. So, yes Glen got sloppy. BTW he’s not a former colleague and we don’t bait people on the same side. He used to do a good job until this goatfuck.

I was also sent a private message some time ago:

When stressed [Jenvey] doesn’t take time to vary his “chop” (our term for writing style).

Perhaps if the Glen Jenvey arrest leads to a trial we may find out some more.

UPDATE: Johnpi adds more at Talk Islam:

Flowers and his Internet vigilante friends the ‘Cheerleaders’ claim to be opposed to Islamic extremism, but they are actually against Islam and target Muslims indiscriminately, just as their fellow travelers in the EDL do, and there is no better evidence of that than the intimidation tactics they engaged in here at Talk Islam, publishing several front page contributors’ home addresses and sending mail to one blogger’s home. They have also repeatedly threatened me.

None of those targeted – Hussein Rashid, Aziz Poonawalla or myself – could be described as anything other than moderate or progressive Muslims who have wrtten against extremism and religious violence.

(1) One prominent EDL logo carries the slogan “In Hoc Signo Vinces”, which was used by the Knights Templar and refers to a vision given to the Roman Emperor Constantine that he would conquer through the sign of the Cross; and that’s the main EDL, not Paul Ray’s weird spin-off.

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A couple of days ago WorldNetDaily carried a typical sensationalised headline:

Will Rockefeller build 3rd Temple?

The answer is “no”, and for once we actually find WND debunking a story (a rare but not unprecedented occurrence). Aaron Klein explains:

The story spread virally through the evangelical Christian blogosphere.

But it was all part of an elaborate hoax.

The release, filed with MarketWire and republished at CNNMoney.com, claims “Supriem David Rockefeller” is director of a company, Kinti Holdings group, which is working with a Jewish Temple organization to rebuild the Third Temple.

States the release: “Kinti Holdings will be raising funds to go towards building the Third Temple in Jerusalem in strict coordinance with The Temple Institute, Rabbi Hiam Richman and The Palestinian National Interest Committee (PNIC) and supporting Husam Bajis for President of Palestine.

Richman, international director of the Temple Institute, a Jewish Temple activist group, told WND the release is a “scam.”

…Yesterday, hours after a WND request for comment on the Third Temple announcement was sent to the sole e-mail address listed for Kinti, the company posted a statement claiming, “Kinti is now conducting Due Diligence of a Major National Brand Name Chain concerning debt for equity and will enter into a mandatory quiet period.”

The “management” section of Kinti’s website states, “All of the previous Officers, Directors and Board of Directors have resigned. Richard Byrd has been appointed the new CEO and the only member of the Board of Directors.”

“Supriem David Rockefeller” is some kind of mythical bogeyman who is discussed on “New World Order” conspiracy-theory websites, although Klein notes there is also someone in Tennessee who has taken the name for himself. There is of course no connection to the Rockefeller dynasty.

One previous release from “Kinti Holdings” has the following:

(Marketwire – Dec. 28, 2009) – Kinti Mining Ltd. (KMLD) (OTCBB:KMLD) receives Khangolov Resources’ Equity Position in Palisades Petroleum (PINKSHEETS:PAPT).

Richard Byrd, the CEO of Kinti Mining Ltd., Is extremely pleased to announce that Khangolov Resources has agreed to assign their large equity position in Palisades Petroleum to Kinti Mining Ltd. This will make Kinti Mining Ltd. the largest shareholder in Palisades.

Frank Love, the CEO of Khangolov Resources, states, “I have assigned Khangolov’s equity position to Kinti Mining Ltd. so as to consolidate my mining assets. In addition, I wanted to confirm to the Kinti shareholders that I will make Kinti Mining into a conglomerate housing many different successful projects under one umbrella.”

Richard Byrd further states that he will finalize the record date for the 2 for 1 forward split previously announced within the next few weeks.

The management team also wishes to welcome Mr. Supriem David Rockefeller to the company.

A press release regarding Khangolov Resources appeared early in 2008:

James Monroe Capital Corporation (Pinksheets: JMCP) has signed a  definitive agreement with Khangolov Resources regarding its oil and gas  contracts, and other related mining assets, in exchange for a large portion of ownership in their mining group.

The company has completely divested itself of its oil and gas  contracts, and other related assets which are now in a separate  company, Khangolov Resources, run by Frank Love, which now has nothing to do with James Monroe Capital, other than the fact that James Monroe  Capital is now a non-managerial shareholder in that company.

…The following report was  given to James Monroe Capital by Khangolov:

“Frank Love, President of Khangolov Resources Inc., is pleased to announce the acquisition of an alluvial mine located in Guyana, South  America. The mine has been sought after for some time by different parties including publicly-traded mining companies as well as established mining companies located in neighboring Brazil and Venezuela. The property is located along the Mazaruni River which has history of housing both diamonds and gold. Frank Love comments on the property and its location, I like Guyana since it is the only English-speaking country in South America. I was attracted to this property not only because it borders on the Mazaruni River but, more importantly, geological maps indicate that the Mazaruni actually ran through it many years ago. Diamonds should, therefore, be plentiful.’

A Google map image showing the whereabouts of the Guyana mine appears on the Kinti Holdings website, along with a mining permit for a tract in the “Mazaruni Mining District No. 3”.

JMCP in turn has a very basic website here, hosted by Google. It lists Frank Love as CEO and Chairman of the Board, and Richard Byrd as President. It carries a photograph from a business meeting in Russia (Stavropol), and explains that:

We are a privately held Oil & Gas Corporation located in Palm Bay, Florida.  Our current assets include Wales Holding Corp.  a $5,000,000 mining corp. and a Joint Venture with Strat Petroleum Corp. which has Oil & Gas ventures located in Russia.  JMCP Acquistions Corp. has a wholly owned subsidiary, Silver Bar Oil & Gas also located in Palm Bay, Florida.

In 2007, a press release announced that

James Monroe Capital Corp. (JMCP) President, Frank Love is very excited to recap recent developments. Frank Love states, “In recent press releases, I discussed $270 million worth of oil sludge in Bashkorstan, Russia; an oil field with 48 million barrels of oil reserves (with today’s price range of $50-$60 a barrel) in the Samara region of the Russian Federation; hundreds of thousands of Stripper Wells available in North America; the acquisition of Wales Holding Corp. (Wales Gold Mining), the Ghanaian-based Gold Company with properties in the Ashanti belt region; the formation of the James Monroe Capital Royalty Trust and finally, the joint venture with Strat Petroleum.”

Meanwhile, Palisades Petroleum announced the Kinti deal in September:

Richard Byrd, CEO of Palisades Petroleum, is pleased to announce that a Joint-Venture has been entered into with Kinti Mining Limited on an adjacent gold property in Guyana.

Palisades Petroleum’s property in Guyana borders Kinti Mining’s property. The Agreement provides for Palisades to mine the property in exchange for half of the net production of gold and diamonds. In addition, Kinti will become a minority shareholder in Palisades.

Richard Byrd states, “Palisades will be able to achieve economies of scale by mining its property in conjunction with Kinti’s. This will lower our unit costs for the production of gold and diamonds. This second acquisition has also made us more attractive to potential institutional investors.”

“Leslie Rutledge wanted to be sure the Company was set up with a good opportunity to proceed forward and flourish before stepping down and resigning. I have an in-depth knowledge of Palisades’ property from my prior extensive due diligence on the adjacent Kinti property,” adds Richard.

We would like to thank Ms. Rutledge for her service with the Company in the recent challenging times and extend our best wishes and good fortune in her future endevours.

Palisades Patroleum is based in Vancouver, and Leslie Rutledge and her husband Don Rutledge have recently been the subject of negative reports in the Vancouver Sun:

By all appearances… it was a lucrative business. Rutledge lived in a $2-million house in West Vancouver, drove expensive cars (including a Porsche), travelled extensively, and consorted with celebrities. As recently as 2008, he and his wife were listed as members of the Hollyburn Country Club.

But it was all a facade. Don Rutledge has been swimming in debt since at least March 2003, when he was petitioned into bankruptcy by Canada Revenue Agency. His declared liabilities totalled $4.4 million, including $2.6 million owed to CRA, against only $1,680 in assets.

The Rutledges have maintained their lifestyle, with the result that Don Rutledge has been an undischarged bankrupt for several years while small investors have lost money. Further,

Leslie Rutledge stepped down as president of Palisades and was replaced by Richard Byrd of Lexington. Miss.

“I am glad to see that the company is progressing rapidly in their endeavours which should bring fortune to us all,” Leslie Rutledge said in a release.

That appears to be wishful thinking. The company’s most recent financial statements show that, as of June 30, it had only $21 in the bank, no revenues, negative equity and negative working capital. The stock is trading at a fraction of a cent on scant volume.

Well, if that’s “wishful thinking”, how does building the Third Temple sound?

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A press release from Leo Igwe:

PRESS STATEMENT

For immediate release February 4 2010

Helen Ukpbabio: Court Strikes out Case against Child Rights Campaigners

Today the Federal High Court in Calabar struck out the case brought against me and other child rights campaigners including the government of Akwa Ibom state by Helen Ukpabio and other members of the Liberty Gospel Church. In November Helen and some of her church members went to court seeking to enforce their rights to believe in God, Satan and witchcraft. They claimed that the seminars and conferences organised in Nigeria by the Nigerian Humanist Movement and other child rights groups to tackle witchcraft related abuses infringed on their rights to spread the gospel. They asked the court to order us to pay them two hundred billion naira(I.3 billion dollars) as damages for unlawful and unconstitutional infringement of their rights.

For the second, Helen and her lawyers were not in court. So the lawyer leading the defence team, Barrister Madaki asked the court to strike out the case due lack of diligent prosecution. And the court granted his request.

The striking out of this case is a welcome development. It is a victory for justice, human rights and the rule of law in Nigeria. This decision by the court is a vindication of the child rights campaigners and the great work they are doing rescuing and saving the lives of children abused and abandoned in the name of witchcraft in Nigeria. It is a clear evidence that Helen Ukpabio and her church members have no case.

They instituted this court action to stop their arrest and prosecution for the attack of July 29 in Calabar.

Nigerian Humanist Movement and its partner groups will continue to work and campaign to eradicate all forms of human rights abuses in the name of witchcraft.

Leo Igwe, Ibadan, Nigeria

I posted a previous press release on this ridiculous law-suit here, and on some of here other legal antics here; she has also promised to pursue the makers of the Channel 4 documentaries about her work, including the actress who narrated them. Her supporters have also sent me some imaginative  insults.

But Leo has a habit of annoying all the right people, and this is not the only legal battle he’s facing – a few weeks ago I noted that he and his family members are facing a murder charge because he spoke out on behalf of a girl who allegedly had been raped by a powerful man in his home village.

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Following my posts on Charlie Flowers and the campaigns of harassment conducted by him and his gang of “Cheerleaders”, a post on Talk Islam by “johnpi” claims to reveal “Cyber-stalker Charlie Flowers’ English Defence League connection”. The author cites me in his piece, but the article doesn’t quite deliver the goods. We’re shown a picture taken from Facebook showing Flowers posing with members of the English Democrat Party behind a St George’s Flag (there’s also a glimpse of the “Cheerleader” who hides behind the pseudonym “Shooter Kirpachi”); but to jump from that to the EDL requires an unsustainable imaginative leap:

The flag in the picture is the St. George’s Cross, which EDL supporters fly at their rallies. The EDL is a right-wing political group with nativist/white supremacist leanings that appeared in England last year.

The obvious problem here is that just because the EDL uses the St George’s Flag, it hardly follows that anyone who makes use of a St George’s Flag must be an EDL sympathizer.

Also in the picture are two other persons, both of whom actively interact with the “Cheerleadered” site. One of these is Bill Baker, who organised an abortive “anti-Shariah” protest outside a mosque in Harrow in August. The Harrow Times reported:

Bill Baker, the organisor, said: “It’s been cancelled. They’ve made assurances that sharia courts will not be held in the building. If they go back on that then obviously we will be allowed to protest.”

He added: “If it’s only going to be used for the community then good luck to them.”

A protest by the EDL in Birmingham on August 10 resulted in violent clashes between members and anti-fascist campaigners attempting to break up the demonstration.

Mr Baker told the Harrow Times ties with the EDL and Casuals United, which formed in the aftermath, were broken after the skirmishes in Birmingham.

…”We are opposed to extremism on both sides of the political agenda.”

(A protest did in fact go ahead, but this was organised by a different group)

The other person is Darren Marsh, who goes on about he “fucking hates the UAF” but who has no EDL link either [UPDATE: He has also informed me that he is in UKIP rather than the EDP].

Certainly, looking over Facebook myself it is somewhat strange that Alan Lake – a businessman who has links with the EDL – should be a fan of Flowers’ music band The Fighting Cocks, but it’s impossible to say what this signifies. It’s also perhaps of interest that a year ago I received a comment from one of the “Cheerleaders” indicating that they had been in contact with Paul Ray but they had disliked his use of the word “Paki”; Ray went on to found of the EDL, although he has since been marginalised. Both Ray and the “Cheerleaders” have also had contacts with Glen Jenvey.

But what about the English Democratic Party? The author at Talk Islam finds a report in which an ex-member accuses it being more extreme than it appears to be, and the EDP’s website currently showcases an interminable modern folk-song which includes lines opining that “long-term immigration” is part of a plot by the “British ruling class” to “crush the English nation”. However, overall I’d judge that it’s more the case that Flowers makes those he associates with look bad, rather than other way round.

A second post on Talk Islam has the detail that

After I published a mocking post about them last year, the Cheerleaders – or the individual who pretends to be the group – threatened several Talk Islam contributors and published their home addresses online. They (or he) also sent mail to at least one TI contributor’s house.

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From a column in Forbes, by a certain Elan Singer, 5 January:

what is the shrewd terrorist to do if he cannot place a little PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) in his underwear?… While most religious clerics would frown upon breast implants for aesthetic reasons, there are more than a few who would likely put their blessing on a pair for explosive reasons…And there is no shortage of physicians who are terrorist sympathizers or even terrorists themselves. Just look at Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was a prominent gynecologist before dedicating his life to death and destruction. He is more than capable of popping some implants into an eager small-breasted terrorist… As a plastic surgeon who has done hundreds of these procedures, I know that all you really need is a knife, some suture material and maybe a bite stick.

This is speculative, but it’s also plausible. A reader letter to the Ottumwa Courier outlined the same scenario the next day.

Remarkably, just weeks later the Daily Mail warns us that it may all be true:

…an operation by MI5 has uncovered evidence that Al Qaeda is planning a new stage in its terror campaign by inserting ‘surgical bombs’ inside people for the first time.

…It is understood MI5 became aware of the threat after observing increasingly vocal internet ‘chatter’ on Arab websites this year.

The warning comes in the wake of the failed attempt by London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an airliner approaching Detroit on Christmas Day.

One security source said: ‘If the terrorists are talking about this, we need to be ready and do all we can to counter the threat.’

A leading source added that male bombers would have the explosive secreted near their appendix or in their buttocks, while females would have the material placed inside their breasts in the same way as figure-enhancing implants

So “an operation by MI5” actually means… looking at some websites. Judging from experiences such as the “Terror Target Sugar” Glen Jenvey fiasco and the “Madonna Targeted by Muslim Fanatics” non-story, one is strongly advised to consider whether the “chatter” is anything more than some anonymous person linking back to Singer’s article or the Ottumwa Courier letter and saying, “hey, wouldn’t that be great?”

But there’s even more, from WorldNetDaily yesterday:

Agents for Britain’s MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives.

…Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery.

…Hours after he had failed, GCHQ – Britain’s worldwide eavesdropping “spy in the sky” agency – began to pick up “chatter” emanating from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted MI5 to the creation of the lethal implants.

A hand-picked team was appointed by Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, to investigate the threat. He described it as “one that can circumvent our defense.”

Top surgeons who work in the National Health Service confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.

In a report to Evans, one said:

“Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines. You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray. Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner.”

WND does not cite the Mail article, nor does it give the sources for its more dramatic claims (aside from WND‘s own paper newsletter Whistleblower, which doesn’t count). How exactly a conspiracy-mongering conservative internet news-site operating out of the west coast of the USA acquired this extra information – including a direct quote from the head of MI5 that is found nowhere else on-line (1), and material from a report prepared for him – is somewhat mysterious.

Pointlessly, WND also includes a picture of a woman suicide bomber named Iat Alacharas – who actually carried her bomb in a purse.

Meanwhile, the Mail reports that one man is on the case:

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Commons Counter-Terrorism Sub-Committee, said: ‘Our enemies are constantly evolving their techniques to try to defeat our methods of detection.

‘This is one of the most savage forms that extremists could use, and while we are redeveloping travel security we have got to take this new development into account.’

That would be the same Patrick Mercer who allowed himself to be serially duped by Glen Jenvey.

(1) Yes, I also looked for “defence” as well as “defense”, and I did plurals as well.

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Numerous times now I have written blog entries on a group of cyber-bullies which calls itself the “Cheerleaders”. Their original targets were Muslim extremists – after all, who cares if they get harassed? – but they also fixate on other people, most notably the blogger Tim Ireland, whom they have subjected to a campaign of abuse and threats in the stated hope that he would be forced to leave the country. As has been documented at length, their campaign has included posting his home address on-line and sending it to hostile parties; this was shortly after Tim had been the subject of a smear campaign accusing him of being a wanted paedophile, and shortly after he had engaged in some anti-BNP activism.

All this time, the “Cheerleaders” have themselves for the most part hidden behind pseudonyms. We know there is an overlap with a music band called “The Fighting Cocks”, with at least three members actively involved. Most obviously, there is the band’s singer, Charlie Flowers, who has threatened to come around to Tim’s house for a fight, and who recently told Tim – distastefully – that he would perform a “Gypsy curse” against Tim’s family. There’s also Dan Wilde, whom Tim approached for an explanation for the harassment and who declined to disassociate himself from the attacks. I’ve also received a message from another associate of the group – someone who calls himself “Matthew Edwards”.

So we have three named members. However, there are other “Cheerleaders” members, and a Facebook page (entitled “Cheerleadered”) has over 200 “friends” listed. Most of these 200 probably joined up after accepting casual invitations, and do not know about the harassing activities. Among the core group, though, is someone who calls herself “Amarah Hadchiti” or “Shooter Hadchiti”, which was recently amended to “Shooter Kirpachi”. Here she (or he, perhaps?) is boasting on Facebook about driving someone off-line:

I’ve redacted a couple of names from the above screen-shot, as these belonged to actual people who may been expecting a bit of privacy.

The background to this particular exchange is that the “Cheerleaders” had recently made links with the serial fraudster Farah Damji, who enjoys some sort of cult following; Damji is described as an “officer” on the Cheerledered Facebook page. Damji was recently found guily of new offences, and as the day of her sentencing approached someone used Twitter to advertise the fact widely. The “Cheerleaders” in turn made threats against this person, warning her that they would cause trouble for her with her employer. That person’s Twitter feed was also suspended, and the above suggests that it was complaints from the “Cheerleaders” which achieved this result (As an aside, despite a sudden health scare which delayed sentencing for a few days – during which time Damji managed a few messages such as the above from her sick bed – she recovered enough for sentencing finally to take place, and she is now in prison.).

Here’s a second exchange:

This is an obvious reference to Tim Ireland, whom they have accused of stalking because he has sought answers about who has been conducting the campaign against him and why. Last week, Tim wrote about one of Charlie Flowers’ friends, who had been cc-ed into a threatening email which Flowers had sent to Tim and who had declined to distance himself from it. Flowers, as ever, resorted to threats to try to divert Tim from his path, culminating in his “Gypsy curse” on Tim’s family. The timing of the above fits with that.

This is of course more harassment, rationalised with a vicious lie clearly being used to incite – and the new development here is that they are recruiting a person who hasn’t hidden behind a pseudonym into their campaign. This person should know better, of course, but one can see how if they believe “Kirpachi’s” comment they might enter into a particular course of action. They whould then face the legal repercussions, while “Kirpachi” continues to skulk behind a hidden identity. Nasty.

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Back in September Rev Stephen Sizer posted a blog entry about the blogger “Seismic Shock”. He told us that the blogger was being monitored by “various police authorities”, and that

… Having now identified the author as a recent graduate of Leeds University, the authorities there confiscated his computer and have retrieved all his deleted files. Evidence of breaches to university internet regulations and the misuse of university computer equipment are clear and has, I believe, been passed on to the police.

I wholeheartedly support free speech and legitimate debate on issues such as the Middle East conflict, but not the use of anonymous blogs to incite religious as well as racial hatred or to intimidate and harass those you disagree with.

On my own blog you can read of my attempts to meet with and be reconciled to the author of Seismic Shock through an open letter.

Stephen quoted Seismic Shock’s description of his blog as evidence (links in original):

My starting-point for blogging was discovering the links between Stephen Sizer and sections of the American Far Right, the anti-Zionist hard Left in the UK and hardcore Islamists in Britain and in the Middle East. You can look back over the early posts in order to see this.

…this blog is focused on the political outworkings of anti-Zionist and antisemitic theology, as well as the misuse of Christianity by fascist thugs.

Seismic Shock – now using his real name of Joseph Weissman – did not respond to this or publicise what had happened, but we now know that he was visited by the police in November and agreed to delete his blogspot blog (most of it was backed up to WordPress). The story became public last week, after Stephen warned an Australian Christian Zionist blogger named “Vee” that

You must take a little more care who you brand as anti-semitic otherwise you too will be receiving a caution from the police as the young former student of Leeds did recently. One more reference to me and you will be reported.

“Vee” had linked to Seismic Shock, describing the site as a resource for Christians to learn about anti-Semitism in the Church, including “lots of info on Stephen Sizer and Sabeel”. The author has now amended the link description to “A look at anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism which is found within certain Christian circles.”

Stephen’s comment prompted Seismic Shock then to go public with his side of the story, setting off a small media storm. He explained that he had not in fact received a caution, and, in an interview with Paul Lewis of the Guardian, he tells us that the police came on a Sunday morning:

“I was told to remove the blogspot,” he said. “The whole entire blog. They said Stephen Sizer … objected to being associated with terrorists and Holocaust deniers. I didn’t want to argue with the police. I just wanted to acquiesce. I did say ‘Can you tell me what is specifically the problem?’ He just said he didn’t want to get involved in the argument.”

Lewis adds:

We can’t know what was said, or what wasn’t. But if they were seeking to avoid controversy, the police may now reflect that they could have approached matters differently. Among the many to cover Weissman’s story are the BBC, @bengoldacre, Index on Censorship and, with typical gusto, Melanie Phillips. Loads of others are weighing in, too.

Obviously, for any blogger in the UK this is an alarming story. If there was a legitimate complaint about specific material on the Seismic Shock blog, the police should have been able to explain what it was. And if they couldn’t manage that, it seems to me that all they should have done is to have advised him that a complaint had been made and asked him for his side of the story – and given him time to find a lawyer.

But that’s the process – what about the substance?

First, I should disclose that I have had cordial communication with Stephen over several years, and I have found his studies of Christian Zionism to be useful. It’s also no secret that I too am not a fan of Christian Zionism: its apocalpytic forms consist of preposterous mis-interpretations of Biblical texts that encourage morbid political attitudes, and while I can understand that some Christians support Israel because it accords with their wider religiously-informed political perspective, non-apocalpytic Christian Zionism is often bad news, too: a Biblical template is imposed on the modern conflict in ways that obscure its realities, and there is a romantic stereotyping of Jews and Judaism.

Stephen is not anti-Semitic, nor is he a supporter of Palestinian terrorism. I also understand that he has suffered real-world harassment, either as a result of his views and activism, or as a result of views attributed to him by hostile sources. I can see why he would be annoyed with Vee, and it’s sensible that Vee has amended her link description to something less inflammatory. However, I think that Stephen’s manner of complaint to Vee does not do him credit, appearing as it does to gloat and containing an inaccuracy. It’s also the case that Stephen has undertaken courses of action which are controversial and which were bound to attract critical reaction. He shares platforms with people that I wouldn’t be willing to, and he sometimes cites as sources persons whom it would have been better to have avoided and which cast a shadow over his judgement. I suppose that his visits to Iran are attempts to show Iranians that not all western Christians are anxious for a clash with the Muslim world, but they have brought him into some troubling company. I know he would agree that these are all matters that should be open for free debate and criticism, as he indicates the quote above.

As regards Seismic Shock, he has in the past provided me with some tip-offs concerning the BNP’s Rev Robert West, and he has given me some kind publicity through his blog on the subject of West and on other matters. He has also certainly highlighted some true examples of Christian anti-Semitism. However, he also sometimes overeggs things in a way that is misleading. This post in particular set off alarm bells for me; here’s the headline:

Ben White: the Holocaust is a ‘myth’

What is the reader supposed to make of this, besides that White believes that the story of the Holocaust is untrue? No reader would understand it in any other way. Yet when we read on, here’s what White actually wrote:

…Even more relevantly, given the use of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism as a propaganda tool of Zionist apologists, historian Richard Slotkin has described the process whereby historical events become ‘myth’ thus:

stories drawn from a society’s history that have acquired through persistent usage the power of symbolizing that society’s ideology and of dramatizing its moral consciousness—with all the complexities and contradictions that consciousness may contain.

This is extremely pertinent to the use of the Holocaust, not only in terms of the Western consciousness and relations with Israel, but also in relation to Israel’s national identity…

Now, White’s purpose in his piece – written in 2006 –  was to argue that Ahmadinejad was not a Holocaust denier. It was an unfortunate article, especially as any doubt was removed a few months later when Iran held a Holocaust denial conference; and of course Seismic Shock is within his rights to quote it with some relish. But the headline, while pedantically true, could only have been written to imply, falsely, that White is a Holocaust denier – when he’s clearly not. As for Seismic Shock’s writings on Stephen, we no longer have access to all of these – not all of the early blogspot material was backed up [UPDATE: Modernity Blog points out actually that Google cache still has most of the contents] – but we can see the same strategy here.

It seems to me that the police handled this badly, but that Seismic Shock could have avoided his troubles if he had been more careful with his rhetoric (perhaps he realises this, which is why the story only came out belatedly and why not all the material was carried over to WordPress. He has also made an effort to clarify that Stephen is not a Holocaust denier since the story broke).  However, Stephen has also brought some just censure on himself with his disappointing message to Vee.

(PS: since the police do take some complaints seriously, here’s a case of harassment which certainly should be investigated)

UPDATE: Modernity Blog is annoyed with me; you can read the discussion in the comments here.

UPDATE 2: Stephen’s side of the story can be seen on Harry’s Place.

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This just about says it all. And watch the whole programme here.

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Cyber-bully Charlie Flowers of the band The Fighting Cocks has stooped to a new low:

from Princess Calamity [princesscalamity@googlemail.com]
to Tim Ireland
date Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 12:02 AM
subject Re: Publication of your email address

Matyi is about to put a Gypsy curse on you and your entire family, at dawn tomorrow- and it’ll be a bad one :(
… you can avoid this curse, by never contacting or writing about us or anyone to do with us again. I’m sure your wife wouldn’t be too happy about your obsessions leading to her and you and yours getting lumbered with something that will follow your bloodline down the generations, now would it?
So.. your choice Mr Stalker.
:D
x
Priya

As is frequently the case, Flowers is cowering behind pseudonyms while playing the hard man, but it’s him: “Matyi” is a stage name he uses, and “Princess Calamity” and “Priya” are both names used by his close associates in a group that calls itself “the Cheerleaders”, which overlaps with his band; as I have blogged on a number of occasions, they have been harassing and threatening Tim for some months.

Back in the summer, Tim emailed Dan Wilde, another member of the Fighting Cocks – Wilde uses the stage name “DJ Assassin”, and, unlike the rest of the band, he is based in Cornwall. Tim asked Wilde if he was involved in the campaign against him; Wilde did not respond (aside from upping his Facebook privacy settings), but instead passed the email on to Flowers. Flowers then challenged Tim to a fight, and followed this up with a threat to come to his house. However, the bully is also a show-off, and he couldn’t resist cc-ing a few of his friends into his challenge. Perhaps he meant to “bcc” them but made a mistake; either way, it backfired as Tim posted the response on his blog, including the email addresses from the cc list. Tim also wrote to these addresses explaining that he would remove them if their owners would disassociate themselves from the “Cheerleaders'” behaviour. Tim has so far received only one response, from a certain “Jonny Yeah”; however, this person chose to prevaricate about how well he knows Flowers rather than give any opinion about his actions. “Jonny Yeah” then got an associate, who runs his website through a software company, to spamblock Tim; when Tim asked “Jonny Yeah”‘s associate about this, he was reportedly told to “fuck off”. So, Tim has written about all these peregrinations, too (I blogged this yesterday). The accusation that Tim is “Mr Stalker” comes from the fact that he has a reasonable question to ask of people who should be able to give a simple response, and he has pushed his point firmly.

All this has sent Flowers and the “Cheerleaders” up the wall; perhaps, behind the scenes, his friends are annoyed at the trouble he has caused them. Slowly, the “Cheerleaders” have realised that sending threats of violence isn’t working; yesterday, Flowers instead threatened to complain to Tim’s webhost – a pathetic display of hypocrisy from a man who has presided over a campaign with the stated intention that Tim should be put “back in his box” and forced to leave the country (these promises were outlined on a now-deleted Twitter feed).

So what about the “Gypsy curse”? Tim is not a superstitious man, but obviously the threat was sent with the intention to intimidate or cause distress. That’s malicious communication in UK law:

 Any person who sends to another person.. a letter, electronic communication or article of any description which conveys… a threat… is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should… cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.

…A person is not guilty of an offence…  if he shows… that the threat was used to reinforce a demand made by him on reasonable grounds and… that he believed, and had reasonable grounds for believing, that the use of the threat was a proper means of reinforcing the demand.

Two problems for Flowers: (a) he has no “reasonable grounds” for his demand, since he gave Tim the email addresses in the first place and Tim has offered to remove them if their owners contact him. Also, a few weeks ago I conveyed a message on Tim’s behalf in which he offered to remove the addresses in return for a full account of “Cheerleader” dealings with Dominic Wightman (1). And (b) a threat to curse someone’s family is hardly a “proper way of reinforcing” any demand. There’s no reason to mention Tim’s family at all, besides intimidation, and no-one with any decency would have stooped to such a disgusting tactic. And in the context of Flowers having publicised Tim’s home address in the past and of having made physical threats, there is reason to be concerned for natural, rather than just supernatural, reasons.

There has been at least one court case in which someone was convicted of malicious communication in circumstances that involved a supernatural threat. In October 2005  a man was convicted in part for sending a letter which included the words: “Amidst all the other mishaps that shall now befall you, I am now releasing those demons that cause you to persecute me back into your soul”.

***

(1) Wightman denies any link to the “Cheerleaders”, although their attacks on Tim began just when Tim publicised that Wightman, with whom we had been corresponding about Glen Jenvey, had lied to us. The “Cheerleaders” have also claimed to have done things on his behalf, both in emails sent to me and in a now-deleted posting to their Facebook site (“Princess Calamity” recently wrote that “He got really scared when he realised we’d actually do stuff to people.”). Flowers also claims to have worked with Wightman at the “VIGIL Network“, and a year ago Wightman passed to Tim and me an audio interview between Jenvey and a man he thought was a journalist; Wightman told us that the man was in fact Flowers, and it seems that the audio was created as part of  feud between Wightman and Jenvey.

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Tim Ireland has written a couple of new blog posts, outlining his dealings with a certain Jon Chappell (“Jonny Yeah”), who is an associate of members of a music band called The Fighting Cocks. Members of this band have formed a separate grouping called “The Cheerleaders“, and under a variety of pseudonyms they have been conducting a campaign of harassment and threats against Tim for some months. This has included posting his home address on-line widely in the expressed hope that he would be forced to leave the country, sending him the warning “machete to your throat”, and a threat from Charlie Flowers, lead singer of the Fighting Cocks, to come around to his house for a fight. They have declined to explain exactly why they decided to act in this way; however, Flowers has claimed to have been involved with the “VIGIL Network”, a now-defunct organisation which supposedly monitored Islamic extremism and which featured on Newsnight in 2006. A year ago Tim discovered that one former VIGIL associate, a man named Glen Jenvey, had been concocting evidence of extremism; and in September we discovered that Dominic Wightman, who had created VIGIL and ran up substantial debts before declaring bankruptcy, had lied to us to try to make us write about another man, against whom he has a grudge. Tim wrote about this, and the campaign began then – although Wightman claims this had nothing to do with him.

The Fighting Cocks (formerly known as Széki Kurva) belong to a wider scene of music bands, DJs, and clubs in the London area, and the “Cheerleaders” Facebook page and Twitter feed have links to many of their friends and acquaintances. The “Cheerleaders” ostensibly exist to annoy Islamic extremists, and the casual visitor to their site might easily miss their wider bullying activities. However, some from this wider pool of hanger-ons ought to know what’s going on; as Tim explains, one email in which Flowers responds to a request for information with a challenge to a fight had been cc-ed to a number of these associates – including “Jonny Yeah” and Gina Khan. Tim posted these email addresses on-line, and he asked their owners if they approved of this kind of thing. None chose to reply at first, but it seems that the “Cheerleaders” realised they had caused their friends some embarrassment. However, as ever, they had only one strategy to get Tim to take the list down: more threats, followed by an attempt to swamp Tim’s email with Nigerian spam by faking his identity. Neither of these worked.

Tim adds:

This suggested to me that someone on that list didn’t want to be visibly associated with what the ‘Cheerleaders’ had been up to, so I contacted everyone on that list, and offered them the chance to disassociate themselves from the online attacks and threats of violence. If they wanted to be removed from this post, all they had to do was account for their conduct to date (i.e. why not object before now?), and distance themselves from this ongoing campaign of harassment.

Only ‘Jonny Yeah’ took me up on the offer and asked for his name/address to be removed. Initially, he pretended not to know anything about the campaign of harassment. When this pretence was fatally undermined by the evidence, ‘Jonny’ suddenly lost interest in the attempt to have his name/address removed.

…At no stage did he express any interest in or disapproval of the repeated use of my personal data to intimidate me… most recently, on his behalf.

“Jonny Yeah” is Jon Chappell of Kooba Radio, an obscure internet radio station. Chappell then spamblocked Tim, so Tim contacted Redwire Design, a company which handles Kooba Radio’s website and where a project manager is Alex Malloy, who is also Chappell’s partner at Kooba . Tim spoke to Malloy by phone at work; Malloy’s alleged response, as a spokesperson for Redwire, was reportedly to advise Tim to “take the hint and fuck off”. The “Cheerleaders”, as ever, made more threats against Tim on their Twitter feed, using foul language, although they have since thought better of it and deleted the tweets.

Chappell’s conduct is strange (as is Gina Khan’s silence on the subject). If a friend of mine cc-ed me into a threatening email against someone I would be very annoyed and somewhat alarmed. If the person who had been threatened emailed me to ask my opinion, I would disassociate myself from the threat most vigorously, and remonstrate with my friend to cease such conduct and to make amends. Not to avoid the hassle, but because it would be the right thing to do. Does that sound so weird in this day?

Perhaps, behind the scenes, some of the Fighting Cocks’ friends are annoyed that they have been put in this position, even if they won’t say so to Tim. Perhaps this is why the “Cheerleaders” are so keen to have the email addresses taken off Tim’s website. And perhaps these friends ought to wonder why the “Cheerleaders” hide behind fake IDs like “Princess Calamity” and “Amarah Hadchiti” while involving the email addresses of real people in their antics.

UPDATE FROM TIM:

…Meanwhile the ‘Cheerleaders’ are hopping about angrily playing the side of law enforcement all of a sudden, outraged that I’d dare to ask anyone about their real names (when they claim it is not an issue); the abiding theme is that if I dare to object to being attacked, then they will continue to attack me… but it has already been established that they plan to continue to attack me anyway…

So, we can add whining hypocrisy to the rest of their vices: we can threaten you and harass and you and try to interfere with your personal life, but if you dare to ask our friends who we are – friends whose email addresses we gave to you by cc-ing them in to a threat – then we will complain to the powers that be.

Actually, I’d look forward to seeing Flowers give evidence in a court case of any kind. Of course, as Flowers and his friends well know, their embarrassment can be eased very easily: all they have to is to explain in full – providing emails and other evidence – why they  decided to attack Tim so viciously and without regard to either the law or simple decency, and what their relationship with those associated with the former “VIGIL Network” might be.

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