• Home
  • About
  • Comments policy
  • Contact
  • My fans

Trial by Jeory

Watching the world of east London politics

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Terry Fitzpatrick: his court appearance
Interviewing the president of IFE »

Abjol Miah, IFE and PCC

August 18, 2010 by trialbyjeory

Last March, Andrew Gilligan presented a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary (in which I appeared) about the links between various politicians in Tower Hamlets and the Islamic Forum of Europe, a lobby group based at the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel. Andrew also wrote series of articles and blog posts here, here, here and here on the same subject for the Daily Telegraph and its sister Sunday title.

These pieces and that documentary have become THE backdrop to the ongoing campaign to become Tower Hamlets mayor. They contained heavy reference to former Labour council leader Lutfur Rahman and ex-Respect councillor Abjol Miah. The latter was described as a “senior activist” in IFE. The articles pointed out that he was not a member.

Following publication, Abjol complained to the Press Complaints Commission that his denial of “senior activism” had not been published. He further complained that the Telegraph had failed to provide him, prior to publication, with specific evidence to back up its allegations.

The text of the PCC’s ruling can be seen in a press release from Tower Hamlets Respect here (I’ve pasted it below as well). Respect’s spin is that the ruling is a victory for their man, who is likely to be the Respect candidate in the forthcoming Mayoral election. Read the ruling and judge for yourselves. Note, in particular, that the PCC is NOT requiring the Telegraph to print a correction or an apology, which is what Respect and Abjol were after (in that matter, I’ve highlighted in bold the significant paragraph in the ruling).

Commission’s decision in the case of

Miah v The Daily Telegraph

The complainant, a Tower Hamlets councillor and former parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green & Bow, said that the newspaper had significantly misled readers and breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code by publishing the claim that he was a “senior activist in” the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) without making clear that that he had denied having such a relationship with the group. The complainant said that the publication of the claim unaccompanied by his denial would suggest to readers that he had accepted it and that he had previously dishonestly represented his political allegiances.

The complainant considered that the newspaper’s argument was “guilt by association”. He made clear that he did not deny that he had friends and family members in the IFE and had professional links to the IFE, but argued that this did not corroborate the specific claim made by the newspaper. In the complainant’s view, the distinction drawn by the newspaper between senior activism in and membership of a group was spurious and illogical.

The newspaper maintained that there was an important distinction to be made between membership of the group and “senior activism in” the group. The newspaper provided evidence in respect of the complainant’s links to the IFE, including his regular participation in a radio show described in IFE literature as a “project of the IFE” and co-presented by IFE activists; the description of him by a fellow member of the Respect party as a “young member of IFE” in 2007; support he had received from prominent members of the IFE during his election campaign; and his associations with three groups it said have strong ties to the IFE: the Young Muslim Organisation UK, Elite Youth, and the Brick Lane Youth Development Association (Blyda).

Nonetheless, at a late stage in the correspondence it offered to publish the following denial from the complainant at the foot of the blog post: Abjol Miah denies that he is an IFE activist. This was not accepted by the complainant as sufficient resolution of his complaint; he required a public admission by the newspaper that it had erred in failing to publish his denial at the time of the original article and that it had not put to him specific evidence to corroborate the claim prior to publication.

In reaching a view on this matter, the primary concern for the Commission was whether readers would have been significantly misled on two points: the newspaper’s claim that the complainant was a senior activist in the IFE, and its omission of the information that the complainant denied this claim.

The Commission made clear that the newspaper was entitled to put forward its view on the significance of the complainant’s links to the group. It had been able to provide a substantial amount of on-the-record corroborating evidence in correspondence to support the suggestion that the complainant had a number of personal and professional links to the group.  The Commission understood the complainant’s concern that the distinction proposed by the newspaper between being a “senior activist in” a group and a “member” of a group was somewhat artificial. Nonetheless, it had to have regard for the fact that the claim advanced by the newspaper was less definitive than a claim of membership. Against this background, and the points put forward by the newspaper, the Commission did not consider that the complainant had been able to establish that the article had been significantly misleading or inaccurate on this point such that it warranted correction or clarification under the Editors’ Code.

The Commission noted, however, that the evidence provided by the newspaper did not provide complete corroboration of the precise claim it had made. The newspaper had made the claim based on a particular interpretation of the material, which it was open to the complainant to dispute. Although it appeared that the precise claim that had been published had not been put to the complainant for comment, he had strongly denied a number of allegations relating to his connections with the organisation. There did not appear to be any suggestion that the newspaper was unaware of his general view on the matter. Under the circumstances, the Commission considered that by excluding this view the newspaper may have given readers the misleading and inaccurate impression that he accepted this description of his relationship with the organisation. The Commission concluded that there was a breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code which merited prompt and explicit remedial action on the part of the newspaper.

The Commission was disappointed at the time it had taken the newspaper to offer this remedy, which had not assisted in the resolution of the complaint. Nonetheless, on balance the Commission considered that the statement offered by the newspaper would clarify the position to readers and acted as a sufficient response to the concerns raised by the complainant. The Commission trusted that this offer would remain open to the complainant.

Share this: Facebook & Twitter

  • Share
  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

4 Responses

  1. on August 19, 2010 at 7:09 am Jon Lansman

    Looks like a defeat for the Telegraph to me.


    • on August 19, 2010 at 9:27 am trialbyjeory

      Do you really think, Jon, that Abjol and Respect launched their complaint with the main aim of getting a one-liner, “Abjol Miah denies he is an IFE activist”??

      You’ll be telling me that Tony Benn beat Denis Healey in 1981 next…


  2. on August 19, 2010 at 7:17 am Nope

    Looks like a defeat for the IFE to me.


  3. on August 21, 2010 at 2:54 pm Interviewing the president of IFE « Trial By Jeory

    […] revisited them this week after the PCC ruling in the case of Abjol Miah versus the Telegraph. I thought it would be useful to publish those conversations which were on the […]



Comments are closed.

  • Ebuzzing - Top Blogs - London
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 6,448 other subscribers
  • Latest Tweets

    • I suppose they do both have a K in their surnames https://t.co/LMHjEr7EpF 10 hours ago
    • Also attended.Thought film was interesting,poetry reading by @slhesketh excellent (as was contribution from the cou… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
    • This all seems great and does seem a beacon in theory but who in Newham actually knows about this?? Zero from our c… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 weeks ago
    Follow @tedjeory
  • Recent Comments

    taj on Election Day: an open thread 
    Curious Cat on Election Day: an open thread 
    Jay Kay on Election Day: an open thread 
    Curious Cat on Election Day: an open thread 
    Cllr Andrew Wood, Ca… on Election Day: an open thread 
    Abdul Hai on Election Day: an open thread 
    Stewart Rayment on Election Day: an open thread 
    Stewart Rayment on Election Day: an open thread 
  • Archives

  • August 2010
    M T W T F S S
     1
    2345678
    9101112131415
    16171819202122
    23242526272829
    3031  
    « Jul   Sep »
  • Blogroll

    • Blood and Property
    • Dave Hill's Guardian blog
    • David Osler
    • Designed for Life
    • Diamond Geezer
    • Ealing Rose
    • Emdad Rahman's Blog
    • Hackney Wick Blog
    • Harry's Place
    • Mayor Lutfur Rahman
    • Mile End Residents' Association
    • Richard Osley's blog
    • Spitalfields Life
    • The Bow Bell
    • The Londonist
    • Tower Hamlets – it's your money
    • Tower Hamlets Watch

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • Trial by Jeory
    • Join 752 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Trial by Jeory
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: