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Why is Cathy Newman still making false allegations when a British court has cleared Sheikh Raed?

August 18, 2015 at 4:33 pm

Since becoming the front runner in the Labour leadership contest, Sheikh Raed Salah, to discredit him as a potential leader. Yesterday, it was the turn of Channel 4 news presenter Cathy Newman, who ambushed him with questions about his alleged links to Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites – including his support for Sheikh Raed Salah.

Sheikh Raed Salah, many will recall, was exonerated by British courts in 2012 of the allegations made against him, including accusations of blood libel; nonetheless the same discredited lies that were adjudged by British courts as false were selected by Cathy Newman to interrogate Jeremy Corbyn in her line of questioning.

It’s as if the debacle, which became a source of major embarrassment for then Home Secretary Theresa May, simply didn’t happen, and that Sheikh Raed’s victory against the British government to clear his name can now be retold as a defeat after a mere three years.

One does not expect a British journalist to rewrite history with the fabrications of Israeli courts and Israeli propagandists at the expense of the judgement passed by British courts. A timely recap of the Sheikh Raed affair, given the way the Palestinian leader has been misused to discredit his supporters in the UK, is needed here.

Sheikh Raed arrived in the UK on 25 June, 2011 at the invitation of Middle East Monitor (MEMO). He travelled on his Israeli Passport – unaware of any purported exclusion order made by the Home Office – and was allowed to leave Israel and enter the UK without any obstruction.

He was scheduled to take part in a widely publicised ten-day programme of speaking engagements across the UK, including public meetings with the British public and parliamentarians on issues related to the Middle East and the plight of Palestinians living in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Three days into his tour, Mr Salah was arrested on 28 June and detained under provisions of the Immigration Act. The retrospective reasoning provided by Theresa May for the ban was that Salah’s presence in the UK was “not conducive the public good.”

With the support of his legal team, Sheik Salah decided to challenge the lawfulness of the government decision in the courts. He stressed that he had entered the UK of his own free will and wanted to leave on the same terms. He insisted in completing his visit and that he would follow the proper court process in relation to an appeal.

Sheikh Raed spent over a year clearing his name against the government’s allegations (that appear in all likelihood to have been predicated on the basis of reports received primarily from pro-Zionist agencies in the UK) that Salah had made anti-Semitic statements in a previously published poem.

In April 2012, Raed Salah famously won the appeal against his deportation in the Upper Immigration Tribunal. The judgment of the Tribunal stated that his detention had been “entirely unnecessary” and that Salah’ s appeal had succeeded “on all grounds”. According to the ruling, Home Secretary Theresa May had””acted under a misapprehension as to the facts” and had been “misled” with regards to the content of the poem authored by Salah. Furthermore, the Tribunal Judge found that the home secretary had taken “irrelevant factors” into consideration in deciding to place a ban on Salah.

The judgement by the tribunal could not have been more scathing. This was a resounding victory for the Palestinian leader and an equally resounding embarrassment for the UK government; Zionists lobbies and the right wing press ought to have prevented journalists in the UK from making the same libellous allegations against him.

The media’s scrutiny of Jeremy Corbyn is understandable given what is at stake. However, one expects journalists employed by celebrated news agencies such as Channel 4 not to behave like tabloid journalist by continuing to spread lies and allegations that have been refuted by none other than a British court of law.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.