Dear Sir,
We strongly condemn your publication’s tendentious article of 15 December in which you attempt to smear the recent Glasgow Islamophobia Conference.
The conference is an annual event jointly organised by IHRC, DIN and SACC. It hosts expert speakers who are free to express their views and engage in open and frank discussion with the audience.
In fact, the conference offers a platform to debate the very restrictions on free expression that the likes of the Telegraph consistently champion in order to advance their pro-Israel political agenda.
You failed to mention in the article that the critical voices you cite are unabashed pro-Israel advocates.
Annie Wells, Tory MSP for the Glasgow Region joined Scottish Conservatives to Israel in August 2016 in a trip (https://cfoi.co.uk/cfi-leads-first-ever-delegation-of-scottish-conservatives-to-israel/) funded by Conservative Friends of Israel.
Lord Walney, for his part, is a former head of Labour Friends of Israel and has consistently used his platform in the House of Lords to shield Israel from legitimate criticism while attacking advocates for Palestinian rights. He has received extensive funding from Israel, and his parliamentary declaration includes being a paid chair of the Purpose Defence Coalition, whose members include Leonardo—one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers, with “extensive links” to Israel’s military. A military currently accused of genocide.
It is no surprise, then, that he has used his various roles to demonise Palestinians and anyone supporting the Palestinian cause or advocating against Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people.
To rely on such politically biased voices – drawn from Zionist groups and networks that have themselves been accused of inciting and inflaming Islamophobic narratives – to criticise an official definition of Islamophobia is particularly heinous. Walney’s Purpose Defence Coalition members arm Israel, which kills Muslims in Palestine, yet he is a supposed authority on the dangers of the definition of Islamophobia? This demonstrates the contempt your outlet has for Muslims and the lengths to which you are willing to go to render them second-class citizens. It only underscores why this conference is necessary.
Moreover, your publication dispensed with even the appearance of impartiality by failing to contact the conference organisers for comment. We hope you will rectify this by publishing our reply.
Your bias is patently evident. However, in trying to vilify an Islamophobia conference with Islamophobic reporting, you have only vindicated its relevance.
Yours faithfully
IHRC, SACC, DIN
