Tag: George Galloway

Huma Munshi responds to George Galloway’s contemptible denial of Naz Shah’s forced marriage.

I cannot believe that Galloway is so ignorant as to allege that because Shah’s mother was present, the marriage was not forced. Galloway was an MP in Bethnal Green and Bow and now represents Bradford West, which both have large Asian communities. While forced marriage is not exclusive to south Asian cultures, he has, no doubt learned about the practice from his constituents.

Well maybe he listens only to his male constituents. I can’t see how he could make such a claim otherwise.

My family were present at my Muslim wedding ceremony in India 10 years ago, along with 500 other guests at a huge reception. I wore the ornate clothes and jewels of an Indian bride, my hands were patterned with henna; but this outward appearance did not – and does not – change the fact that this was a forced marriage in every sense. I had repeatedly told my parents that I did not want to go through with the ceremony, but to no avail. Like Shah I was emotionally blackmailed. My mother threatened suicide if I did not comply because of the dishonour it would bring on our family.

Munshi left the marriage. She was diagnosed with PTSD.

The ramifications of Galloway’s rhetoric are extremely worrying. By using Shah’s experience in this way, he puts future victims at risk. Using his platform and position as an MP he denies Shah the right to speak about her experiences by calling them into question. Shah says she was forced and emotionally blackmailed into her marriage – we should believe her. I worry about the impact Galloway’s comments will have on other survivors when they seek support. They already face the barrier of having to overcome the “honour code” which is drilled into them from childhood. The most important thing is to believe us victims of forced marriage when we say our parents were the perpetrators. Start with the premise of believing the victim – this in itself would be a revolutionary act.

As a British Asian Muslim woman it worries me hugely that someone like Galloway, in a position of power, can make these comments.

It’s so familiar, isn’t it. There are women making the claims and there are men in positions of power denying them, minimizing them, belittling them, ridiculing them.

It’s not a good look. It’s never a good look. You would think the men in positions of power would start to figure that out at some point.

Great god almighty – a new low for George Galloway. You wouldn’t think that possible, would you, but it is. Helen Pidd reports in the Guardian:

George Galloway has admitted ordering an intermediary in Pakistan to dig out the marriage certificate of his Labour rival in order to try to prove she had been 16, not 15, when she claims to have been forced into marriage.

…

Officials from his Respect party dispute that Naz Shah, Labour’s candidate in Bradford West, was forced into marriage, on the grounds that her mother was at the ceremony.

Who do they think does the forcing in forced marriage? The military? Strangers wearing masks? It’s the family that does the forcing. The fact that Mummy was at the wedding does not demonstrate the absence of force.

Shah and Galloway were at a campaign event Wednesday evening.

Galloway produced what he claimed was her nikah, her Islamic marriage certificate. Telling her she had “only a passing acquaintance with the truth”, Galloway said: “You claimed – and gullible journalists believed you – that you were subject to a forced marriage at the age of 15. But you were not 15, you were 16 and a half. I have your nikah in my pocket.”

So yaboosucks!

Is being forced into marriage at 16 and a half so dramatically less awful than being it at 15 that it’s worth digging up and gloating at? Being forced into marriage at any age is awful, and what kind of piece of shit do you have to be to try to minimize it?

The age difference mattered, he suggested, because it “slandered” the Pakistani community and played into “every stereotype”. He was cheered by a large contingent of the Bradford crowd and heckled by others.

Oh, right, that’s what counts, the reputation of “the Pakistani community” as opposed to the well-being of its individual members, even women. Yeah. By the same token, the reputation of “Thought Leaders” in the atheist movement is what counts, as opposed to the well-being of rape victims within that movement.

Asked whether Galloway disputed Shah’s claim to have been forced into a violent marriage as a teenager – be that at 15 or 16 and a half – and was repeatedly raped in that marriage, [Galloway’s spokesman Ron] McKay said: “In what sense was it a forced marriage? Her mother attended the marriage in 1990 as well as other family members and many witnesses did also, signing and giving fingerprints, so if it was forced presumably her mother and the others were part of that coercion?”

The mind boggles. It freezes into a lump of useless oatmeal. What does he mean “In what sense was it a forced marriage?” In every sense! Does he think it’s not a forced marriage unless there are strangers with machine guns present? Does he think he can successfully pretend to think it’s not a forced marriage unless there are strangers with machine guns present? Above all, why is Galloway hoping to win an election by belittling a woman’s forced marriage?

McKay said that if Shah’s first husband had been violent to her, “then as a British citizen in Pakistan she could have jumped on a plane and left him behind, although I do appreciate that is often extremely difficult. If he was violent to her here – I’m not aware when they came back to Britain – then she could have gone to the police, social services, an imam or whatever. I am not aware, are you, of any such report by her to anyone, here or there?”

But he said Respect was in contact with Shah’s first husband, who has “strongly denied any earlier nikah” or doing her “absolutely any harm”.

Oh well then – say no more. Case closed.

I look forward to thousands of blog posts complaining that I’ve smeared and defamed Ron McKay and George Galloway and Naz Shah’s first husband.

Originally a comment by newenlightenment on Letters demanding £5,000.

(Repost)

Galloway’s endorsement of dictatorship extends beyond the Muslim world. Here he is in 2008 at a rally for the ultra Stalinist Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist Leninist)* praising Mao’s cultural revolution and denouncing free Tibet protestors as ‘Running dogs of imperialism’:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuWNlFkrihQ

The CPGB (ML) is a tiny little sect whose sole purpose appears to be to endorse every brutal despot in existence, provided that despot is at least vaguely anti-American. The party has pledged its colours to North Korea, its chairman Harpal Brar wrote an entire book praising Robert Mugabe, they offer unconditional support to Hamas and Hezbollah and have marched under the slogans ‘victory to Assad’ and ‘victory to Gaddafi’. (Though even they draw the line at ISIS) since they lack any resources to bribe Galloway in the manner to which he is accustomed I can only conclude he was at that meeting out of genuine solidarity with their warped ideas.

What a great friend Galloway is to the Muslim world, endorsing a Chinese dictatorship that occupies and subjugates Muslim East Turkestan with far more viciousness that Israel has ever shown in Gaza. He displayed that same friendship when he endorsed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which resulted in the deaths of over a million Muslims. Fraternal love towards the Muslim world must have been utmost in his mind when he opposed effective intervention in Bosnia, to prevent the attempted genocide of its Muslim population by Milosevic’s thugs. Galloway once said ‘a billion Muslims know my name’. I truly hope so, George, I hope they never forget it.

*not to be confused with the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) or the Revolutionary communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) never mind the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Party of Great Britain or the New Communist Party of Britain. Seriously, I’m not making any of this up.

Originally a comment by Rosie Bell on Letters demanding £5,000.

I’m ardently hoping that this will backfire on Galloway. The disgusting scumbag has threatened to sue people before, they’ve told him to take a hike, and a hike he has taken.

Various top-notch lawyers are offering free advice to his victims. This article below gives a good & amusing account of Galloway’s & his lawyers’ doings.

“Chambers appear to be focused on immigration, serious crime and fraud and personal injury, among other topics. But above all, they are, according to their own website “calculated risk takers”, who are “not afraid to take on challenges that would daunt many others”.

They boast that their ethos “is to ensure that the ordinary person has access to good quality legal advice as public bodies, insurance companies & multi-national companies which has led us to take on many ‘David & Goliath’ legal struggles for justice”.

This does not seem to tie in with the pursuit of one Twitter user who received a letter from Chambers demanding money. That person, with only 70 followers on Twitter, told the Guardian: “I’m not a politician. I’m not remotely influential. I deleted it. I have been suffering terrible health problems [since receiving the letter]. I’m on antidepressants and suffering from chest pains.”

Chambers’ apparent risk-taking, would seem to have backfired rather spectacularly.

Private Eye magazine said it had “drawn the letter to the attention of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) which takes a dim view of this sort of ‘speculative invoicing’”.”

Galloway is grossly litigious. A couple of times he’s had a point, when accused of dodgy financial dealings in major newspapers, but most of the time it’s been to stifle criticism. He’s an MP, he has plenty of media space to argue with or even shout at people, but he prefers to try & destroy them instead. No other MP acts like that. That Twitter spat with Hadley Freeman would have passed into cyberspace and been forgotten in a day or two if he hadn’t sued her.

A good piece here about the vague defamatory laws in the UK which allow this sort of rubbish and the difference between an ordinary person defending their reputation and a public figure.

The UK and Europe have never adopted the so-called public figure exception to defamation law, which would further promote public debate by creating a stronger presumption of freedom for speakers when they are discussing high-profile politicians, or other persons who have visibly entered the cut and thrust of politics.

One rationale for that doctrine is that someone like Galloway has broad and immediate access to influential media and public fora, within which he can more than adequately respond to such criticisms, without having to run to the courts to defend himself.

George Galloway’s lawyers have been sending people letters demanding money for…retweeting an allegation that Galloway is anti-semitic.

George Galloway has ordered lawyers to issue Twitter users who alleged he was an anti-Semite with letters demanding £5,000 and threatening legal action.

The Bradford West MP has reportedly singled out up to a dozen people, including some who had only re-tweeted other posts and a charity worker with just 75 followers.

The letters, seen by The Times, were issued by Bradford-based Chambers Solicitors. They said the recipient was “required” to pay legal costs of £5,000 plus VAT into a HSBC bank account by 10 March.

Required??? Just like that? In advance of any trial, on their say-so? That sounds awfully…extortion-like.

Ron McKay, a spokesperson for Mr Galloway, confirmed his legal action to The Independent, claiming it was “normal practice” for lawyers to demand costs from a defendant before a the start of a libel case.

“If they don’t pay the money it will go to court,” he added.

Well, given the way the Indy is framing this, I have a suspicion it’s not normal practice at all.

Among those receiving a warning was Hadley Freeman, a Guardian columnist, who wrote a since deleted tweet about the Respect MP on 10 February.

Later that day, Mr Galloway wrote on Twitter: “I have begun legal proceedings against Hadley Freeman of the Guardian on her defamatory comments about me. No one should repeat them.”

The furore inspired the hashtag #libelGalloway to trend as people concocted joke statements to poke fun at his legal action.

A charity worker who re-tweeted a post supporting Ms Freeman, which repeated an anti-Semitism accusation, was among those receiving letters.

“I don’t have £50 let alone £5,000,” the person told The Times.

…

Another recipient told the newspaper they were “frightened” by the demands sparked by two re-tweets that were not meant as endorsements.

Mr Galloway has also personally threatened critics with legal action on Twitter, writing to one last week: “Most unwise of you to be writing these things. My lawyers will find you.”

Dreadful man.

It’s not easy tracking down Galloway’s libel suit history.

In May 2009 he announced plans to sue Canada’s immigration minister Jason Kenney for not letting him drop in on Canada.

British antiwar MP George Galloway, who was denied entry into Canada in March, announced Friday he plans to sue Immigration Minister Jason Kenney over suggestions he supports terrorism.

The defamation notice, the first step in commencing a defamation action, was also served on senior members of two Jewish organizations as well as a top Kenney aide.

Galloway alleges the respondents made more than a dozen statements that were widely published in Canada and abroad but were false and damaged his reputation.

…

A source who asked not to be named said Galloway considered statements from Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber to be the most egregious because they were “so outrageous and so extreme.”

Among other things, Farber had said Galloway did not have the right “to raise funds for terrorist causes” in Canada.

…

The notice gave the respondents three days to apologize or retract their statements, or Galloway will issue a statement of claim next month, said Toronto lawyer Nicole Chrolavicius, who is acting for the politician.

The notice also names Jewish congress co-president Sylvain Abitbol and Frank Dimant of B’Nai Brith Canada, who said in March that “individuals who glorify terrorism” deserve to be denied entry to Canada.

Next month, The Star said, but in fact it was April 2011, a month short of two years later, when he proceeded with the suit:

OTTAWA – Outspoken former British MP George Galloway has made good on his threat to sue Canada’s immigration minister over an attempt to ban him from entering the country for a Canadian speaking tour.

A statement of claim filed Tuesday alleges Jason Kenney and his assistant Alykhan Velshi abused the power of their offices by banning Galloway from Canada in March 2009.

The statement of claim, which seeks $1.5 million in damages, also alleges that Kenney and Velshi defamed Galloway in British newspapers.

He did proceed, but I can’t find the outcome. Wikipedia doesn’t say.

I suppose it’s more likely to be findable if it succeeded than if it failed, so maybe not finding it=it failed. But I don’t know.