Nafeez Ahmed/Byline Times – PRESS HERE
An initial response to Byline Times, Nafeez Ahmed and a 2018 Call for Financial Support
We within Tell MAMA, have sadly had to take up time that could be better utilised working to help victims of anti-Muslim hatred or Islamophobia, which is the remit of our work, instead of having to respond to Nafeez Ahmed from Byline Times. This is the second time he has contacted Tell MAMA (on the 19th of June 2024), and we chose in his initial contact not to respond and to get on with the work we are funded for – to help and support victims of anti-Muslim hate. However, given his fixation on us and his authorship of a previously inaccurate and bizarre article about an event 8 years ago that is highlighted in the attached Mishcon de Reya letter, we have chosen to respond in detail and we urge you – members of the public, to read the letter addressed to Ahmed.
We have today made the decision to highlight to the public, the actions of Nafeez Ahmed. For someone who promotes himself as a serious journalist, we want you, the public, to read the following letter sent to Ahmed and Byline Times from our solicitors – Mischon De Reya.
Whatever issue Ahmed has with us, we want to make it clear that His Majesty’s Government are our funder and we will answer to them and they regularly conduct due diligence work on Faith Matters, which runs the Tell MAMA project. This is important and it is obviously essential to ensure value for money and operational viability, as well as good practice. We are not beholden to whatever issues Ahmed and Byline Times have with us, though we also are aware that Byline regularly provides a platform to divisive groups. They have to answer for that.
It is also interesting to note how Ahmed has written previously for Byline Times and suggested that Tell MAMA ‘suppressed the publication’ of a report we commissioned. Depending on how you choose to interpret the term ‘suppressed’, the general assumption that can be made is that the report we commissioned was ‘buried’. The assertions Ahmed made was that Tell MAMA suppressed, (read) buried the report for fear of losing our funding because the report criticized some Conservatives meeting with politicians of far right groups in assembly and other meetings. The question does arise as to why would we commission a report into these matters and then ‘bury’ the findings. Seemingly, we suppressed the publication, so much so that he quotes the very report we commissioned in Le Monde (online), in 2019. Here is the link. Tell MAMA is clearly listed there as the commissioning organisation.
Separately, we have always said that we are open and willing to listen to constructive debate and dialogue, but we will not allow ‘culture’ wars, personal vendettas or any such issues to be used against the work of supporting victims of anti-Muslim hate. This work is too important for that.
READ: Parliamentary Privilege, Smears and Conspiracies Aimed at Tell MAMA
Correspondence from Mishcon de Reya on Behalf of Faith Matters and Tell MAMA
We therefore want to highlight the following paragraphs from the Mishcon de Reya letter and they are listed below, for ease of reference, though we would urge you to read the whole of the letter on Ahmed and his comments. (The abbreviation MdR is used for our solicitors).
There are also two things that are particularly important and the first is that, in the e-mail of the 19th of June 2024, Ahmed suggests that the Directors of Faith Matters have purposefully and deliberately provided ‘false information’ to Companies House. This assertion suggests criminality. In further correspondence from Byline Times on Tuesday the 9th of July, this is what Byline Times stated:
“We would like to repeat the assurance given in that letter that we have no intention of publishing anything to the effect that any directors of Faith Matters or any other persons connected with Faith Matters have committed any criminal offence.”
This is a significant ‘u-turn’ from Ahmed’s written and stated position to Tell MAMA. This is important since it points to issues around accuracy and we can also rightfully question whether Ahmed can be impartial in his journalism in the future towards Tell MAMA, or to Faith Matters – the parent registered body. All very relevant points.
Furthermore, we did not want to raise this, but our hand has been forced after the actions of Ahmed and Byline Times. In January 2018, Nafeez Ahmed direct messaged Tell MAMA asking for financial support in a new writing venture that he was starting. Again, we can legitimately ask the question – has Ahmed crossed the rubicon of journalistic ethics in asking for financial support from the very project that he sought to write two (negative) articles about. Suffice as to say, Tell MAMA did not entertain his financial request.
These are key paragraphs in the Mishcon de Reya letter which we want to highlight demonstrating serious questions around the prejudicial tone of the enquiries made by Ahmed:
MdR – “It is clear from the nature and prejudicial tone of the Enquiries that you have no intention to engage in good faith with Faith Matters, and have no interest in any objective and impartial analysis of Faith Matters’s work. It is remarkable that you would allege that criminal offences have been committed by two of Faith Matters’s directors based on unspecified “discrepancies”, and that £6million of public funds have been “wasted” on the basis of the wording of Faith Matters’s CIC reports as filed on Companies House.”
This paragraph in the letter highlights comments on the work of Nafeez Ahmed:
MdR – “On 6 June 2016, the research team at Tell MAMA e-mailed Mr Mughal maintaining his concerns with the presentation of certain arguments in the Report and the sourcing of the information contained in it. He also expressed his concerns with the fact that Mr Ahmed had rejected many of Tell MAMA’s requested citations and further amendments the Report despite the fact that Tell MAMA was commissioning the report: “From a research perspective, I’d expect this from someone who was in their first year at university. It would be wholly unacceptable to publish something under our banner without the appropriate citations. […] Also, he’s been paid to deliver this project and I expect that we have liberty to make style changes.” Again, no concerns were raised regarding the conclusions of the investigation as set out in the Report.”
Point (viii) in the chronology of the letter lists this about Ahmed’s first article on Tell MAMA a few months ago:
MdR – “On 20 June 2016, sections of the Report were published on Tell MAMA’s website. Tell MAMA’s social media channels also publicised the publication of the Report. Mr Mughal sent an e-mail to Mr Ahmed on the same day confirming this. They also exchanged e-mails later that day about OpenDemocracy’s publication of the Report. It is therefore staggering that Mr Ahmed would claim in the Article that, “Tell MAMA did not publish, amplify or campaign on any of the findings revealed in my investigation, which it had commissioned. There was no report launch, no social media campaign, and no press coverage.”
Furthermore, as we have suggested, Ahmed had asked for financial support from Tell MAMA through a ‘direct message’ on Twitter in 2018. Why would a journalist want to receive financial support from an organisation that he then seeks to write negatively about? Surely Ahmed would have realised that these two positions may well have been compromised?
MdR – “Until he e-mailed Mr Mughal on 8 and 9 March 2024 for comment on the Article prior to its publication, Mr Ahmed had limited contact with Mr Mughal, and any member of Tell MAMA, after November 2016: on 16 January 2018, Mr Ahmed requested to connect with Mr Mughal on LinkedIn, and on 29 January 2018, Mr Ahmed sent a direct message to Tell MAMA on Twitter asking if it would financially support his work.”
The letter ends with the following:
MdR – “Your reporting is indefensible
It is clear from your cynical approach to engaging with and reporting on our client that the Article and any future reporting on our client would not be legally defensible.
The Article is, and any article based on the Enquiries would be, indefensible and no defence pursuant to section 2 (truth), section 3 (honest opinion) nor section 4 (public interest) of the Defamation Act 2013 would be applicable. The Allegations in the Article and in the Enquiries are false, precluding a section 2 defence. As to section 3, the Allegations in the Article are presented as fact and, in any event, even if they were held to be opinion, as the contemporaneous e-mail exchanges between Tell MAMA and Mr Ahmed demonstrate, Mr Ahmed did not in fact hold that opinion.
Faith Matters and its project, Tell MAMA, support investigative journalism that is in the public interest – indeed, that is why it commissioned the Report. However, as you will be well aware, there is no public interest in publishing false allegations which mislead the public, precluding a s4 defence.
Far from being an example of such journalism, the Article and Enquiries levy highly defamatory and false allegations against Faith Matters. The publication of the Article has caused – and, for as long as it remains online, will continue to cause serious harm to Faith Matters, Tell MAMA and Mr Mughal. The publication of any article based on the Enquiries would similarly cause very serious harm for which you would be liable.”
The post The Truth, Nafeez Ahmed and Byline Times – Indefensible ‘Reporting’ appeared first on TELL MAMA.
Categories: anti-Muslim hate, Anti-Muslim Hate Crime Advisor, Baroness Shaista Gohir, Byline Times, Mishcon de Reya, Nafeez Ahmed, News
