MEND RESPONDS TO NICK COHEN

Nick Cohen has been known to champion Muslim organisations which have no little or no grass roots support among British Muslims (‘How brave Muslims are being silenced’, The Observer, 4 October).

While Mr Cohen has a personal right to support whomever he chooses, it is unbefitting for a national Sunday newspaper to allow for such favouritism to be passed off as ‘journalism’. It is not objective. It is not impartial. It is certainly not reflective of British Muslim opinion. Mr Cohen would know that if he mingled with more British Muslims than his favoured few.

Under the last Labour Government, British Muslims had unrepresentative organisations foisted upon them by former Labour MP Hazel Blears. Under the current Conservative Government, British Muslims are facing similar pressures to conform to a ‘state-sponsored Islam,’ driven by docile leaderships backed by public funds, rather than be left to choose their own representative leadership from among grassroots Muslim organisations.

Rather than use his column as an advertorial for an organisation with little support among British Muslims, might I suggest Mr Cohen make the effort to meet those he likes to portray as the ‘bogeyman’? He might finally learn that there is nothing to fear from the law-abiding, British Muslim majority whose only demand is that they be free to exercise their civil rights without exception, fear or favour.

Yours sincerely,

Sufyan Ismail
CEO, MEND
Suite 208,
Bow Business Centre,
153-159 Bow Road,
London
E3 2SE.

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