Newsnight Exposes Forged Report On UK Islamic Extremism

[IanFantom]

In October the influential think tank, the Policy Exchange, produced a report which hit the headlines. They investigated 100 mosques around Britain and claimed that 25 of them were disseminating extremist literature.

Newsnight had been working on a detailed film based on this report but, as we were checking the evidence which underpinned the findings, we began to find some discrepancies which gave us cause for concern.

All was revealed on the programme.

Video - 'Watch latest programme' at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm?survey=no& url=news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm&site=sitelabe l&js=yes&uid=84f7e2c6b01a91f4ced9e0edf1005e1ad2fcfd83500041d77a846170b 1f629aa

Blog:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/12/wednesday_12_december_200 7.html

[Mark Gobell]

Thanks Ian.

Watch last night's Newsnight programme.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_4670000/newsid_4679900/4679986 .stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&681,height=487&0,location=0,status&news=1&0,resizable =0,width&0,menubar=0,scrollbars&bbcws=1

Policy Exchange published their report titled: The Hijacking of British Islam claiming that "it was the most comprehensive academic survey of it's kind".

You can download the report here (3Mb PDF)

It was front page news. Everywhere. Newsnight report that David Cameron was going to take up the issue with the Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah during his recent state visit.

Policy Exchange "researchers" apparently visited 100 Mosques and found evidence of extremist literature being sold in 26 of them.

They purchased books at these locations and produced receipts to support their claims.

Newsnight began investigating their claims and discovered that some of the receipts were nothing to do with the Mosques as claimed.

Policy Exchange claimed that some of the books had been bought from booksellers operating within the Mosques.

The Newsnight team had the receipts examined by a Forensic Document expert who revealed that some had been produced by inkjet printers and that two receipts had probably been written by the same person, for two different Mosques, 40 miles apart.

The document analyst used the ESDA test to reveal the impressions made on one receipt from the indentations made by writing a second receipt placed on top of it.

Also, the names and addresses on some receipts were incorrect.

When these receipts were compared to official receipts from the Mosque's in question, they bore no resemblance.

Newsnight concluded that this evidence led to suspicion of forgery on the part of Policy Exchange researchers, all 40 of whom were unavailable as they were on a religious retreat in Mauritania.

Whilst some of the Mosques admitted to having books that would be considered extremist, some of the "evidence" presented by Policy Exchange appears to be very suspect.

Dean Godson pointed out that the author of one of the books in question was ‘Abdul ‘Aziz bin ‘Abdullah bin Baz, stating that he was the founder of the Mosque and that it's leading scholar was Dr Suhaid Hasan, a pupil of bin Baz.

Policy Exchange also sent Newsnight a long legal letter threatening legal action should the film be broadcast.

Dismissing Newsnight's claims, Paxo allowed Godson the last word:

[IanFantom]

Thanks, Mark.

What amazed me about the forgeries was how incompetent they were. Would this implicate MI5 or MI6?

Ian.

[TonyGosling]

Has anybody recorded this?
If not please do so make it available for download somewhere like the BB effing C don't hoping the story will die a death. Very good at spending our money, not known for keeping controversial documentaries.

massive

MI6 and other factions of the evil empire will want to kill this stone dead

[kbo234]

[GazeboflossUK]

Yes, it was almost unbelievable watching Dean Godson dig a deeper and deeper hole for himself as the interview progressed.

There were over half a dozen times when Godson was caught out telling little fibs. He looked quite jittery too....while Paxman looked fairly relaxed and confident, as usual.

[Bongo]

It should still go to court for the damage it has already done to the Muslim community.

I also don't buy the whole argument that books with this content circulating is as big a problem as people would like to think. When we start to censor free speach and content of books, it is the beginning of the end. We have the BNP shop selling content we strongly do not agree with, lots of Muslim people did not like what Salman Rushdie had to say in the Satanic Verses and inherently we have extremist views of all persuasions in books.

To ban this content simply drives it underground, but to use it for the purposes of stirring racial and sectarian hatred as Dean Godsons' Policy exchange clearly tried to do is 'CRIMINAL'.

There is a fine line between 'free speach' and 'intent to incite hatred', but more often than not it is the over-reaction to the initial free speach that is the catalyst for the instigation of hatred.

[Newspeak International]

Only caught the last couple of minutes last night,and as already said Paxman was quite good,against the manic Godson.
If these guys are supposed to be masters of deception, Godson
clearly needs a refresher course.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Godson

[TonyGosling]

Just sat and watched it right through



What sort of 40 day religious retreat in Mauritenia are the Policy Exchange researchers on?
A satanic one?

shocking

...and utterly corobberates all we've been saying about fabrication of bomb attacks by and evidence against British Muslims - presumably by MI6. Whatever's going on here it's Special Branch and MI5's job to stop it.
Oh

Any follow up press?
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=&ncl=1124887034&scoring=n

Murdoch has waded in on the side of Policy Exchange and the bare-faced Godson.

Yes, but the official denials appear to be killing the story
What cold operators these C21 Nazis are.
Suggest all newspapers who put out the original story be contacted demanding retractions and follow-up. Most editors, one hopes, would be happy to comply.

[Mark Gobell]

The response from Policy Exchange:

[Mark Gobell]

Newsnight Editor Peter Barron responds

[James C]

Nice to have the BBC expose what we've always known for a change. Despite their apparent failure to investigate other conspiracies, they should be applauded on this one.

Will this evidence become front page news? If not, why not.

[Riaz Ahmed]

Thanks for the thread!

Highly disturbing, but NO suprise.

I have downloaded it, will convert to DVD and send this off to various bodies.

[TonyGosling]

Exposed! The Policy Exchange's fraudulent report on radical Islam in
the UK:

http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/4476/9/

Evidence of extremism in mosques 'fabricated'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2226704,00.html

You may have seen Dean Godson of the PE on Newsnight last night defending the indefensible. Godson is, as you will know, a neocon advocate of extreme measures against dissent and has form - not least in family connections.

See Spinprofiles for more on him and his connections:
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Dean_Godson
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Policy_Exchange
Feel free to add more...

spinwatch and spin profiles appear to be very very busy tonight
this is from the google cache
The Godson approach to political warfare

Part I. Covert action in Britain from the Cold War to the War on Terror

By Tom Griffin, 4 September 2007

Is Gordon Brown really “leading the way in counter-terrorist thinking”? That is what the Guardian claimed last month, when it revealed that Prime Minister was looking to the Cold War as a precedent for the ideological struggle with Islamic terrorism.

“In this he has recently been inspired by a 1999 book on the CIA and the cultural cold war, Who Paid the Piper? by the British journalist Frances Stonor Saunders,” Matthew D’Ancona reported. “He was particularly intrigued by the CIA's management of the Boston Symphony Orchestra as ‘the juggernaut of American culture’. Brown cites the success of the anti-communist Congress for Cultural Freedom in harnessing the intellectual firepower of a generation of authors and artists, and funding journals such as Encounter, Transition and Partisan Review.”

It is not obvious from D’Ancona’s laudatory prose, but Brown’s big idea is far from original. If anyone deserves credit for ‘leading the way’ it is surely journalist Dean Godson.

“During the Cold War, organisations such as the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office would assert the superiority of the West over its totalitarian rivals. And magazines such as Encounter did hand-to-hand combat with Soviet fellow travellers,” Godson wrote in The Times last year. “For any kind of truly moderate Islam to flourish, we need first to recapture our own self-confidence. At the moment, the extremists largely have the field to themselves.”

In fact there is reason to believe that Cold War methods of psychological warfare are already shaping the debate about Islam and the war on terror in Britain.

Dean Godson himself may be one the most successful practitioners. Certainly, he comes from a family with long experience of what the CIA calls ‘covert action’.

Image
Joseph Godson, US fixer
During the 1950s, Dean’s father, Joseph Godson was the US Labour attaché in London, a role in which he exercised a discreet but powerful influence over British domestic politics, becoming a close ally of Hugh Gaitskell, the leader of the Labour right. Godson was present at a series of secret meetings where Gaitskell plotted the expulsion of his left-wing rival Aneurin Bevan shortly before he assumed the Labour leadership in 1955.

During this period, many Gaitskellite intellectuals wrote for Encounter, an Anglo-American magazine co-founded by Irving Kristol. Not until 1967 would it be revealed that Encounter and its parent organization, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, were funded by the CIA as part of the programme of covert action that has become known as the cultural cold war.

Image
Godson at Burtons Biscuits, Edinburgh
Joseph Godson’s role in this effort continued into the 1970s when he founded the Labour Committee for Transatlantic Understanding, and became European co-coordinator for the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University. Both groups were closely linked to the pro-NATO circles in the Labour Party that would spawn the SDP in the 1980s and New Labour in the 1990s.

Much of Godson’s work would be continued by his elder son Roy, a Georgetown Professor who served on the National Security Council and the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1982 to 1988.

Roy Godson’s role in covert operations emerged most clearly in the aftermath of the Iran/Contra affair, when an independent counsel’s report found that he had helped Oliver North channel thousands of dollars to the Contras through the Heritage Foundation.

Since 1993, Roy Godson has been President of the National Strategy Information Center , a think-tank that has had a significant influence on the Bush administration.

In 1996, the NSIC published a report on the Future of US Intelligence, which called for an increased emphasis on covert action and strategic deception at the expense of scientific intelligence analysis. One of the report’s co-authors, Abram Shulsky, went on to head up the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, which provided Donald Rumsfeld with intelligence suggesting that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda.

Image
Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards
A similar focus on deception is evident in Roy Godson’s own writings. In his 1995 book Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards, Godson provides a detailed account of the methodology of covert action, which he describes as ‘the attempt by a government or group to influence events in another state or territory without revealing its own involvement.’

Godson attributes an important role to deep-cover officers who “can be journalists, politicians, student leaders, retired military officers, trade union leaders, businessmen, academics, or public relations specialists. Their colleagues do not generally believe they are collaborating with foreign intelligence services.”

Godson describes a number of missions that such officers can perform: the recruitment of agents of influence, the provision of covert funding and support to friendly non-governmental organizations, and the spreading of propaganda, including disinformation.

“The sponsor may judge that anonymous propaganda is more effective, or that at worst it can be disowned,” he writes. “Covert propaganda can be black (well hidden) or gray (disseminated with a thin veil of cover.) The propaganda itself may be truthful or intentionally false.”

It is tempting to interpret the activities of Roy Godson’s younger brother in the light of this methodology.

Like Roy, Dean Godson served in the Reagan administration, as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman.

He is better known in Britain as the former chief leader writer of the Daily Telegraph, and as a research director for the Conservative think-tank Policy Exchange. In the latter capacity, he has been at the forefront of the debate about the British Government’s engagement with the Muslim community.

He has been particularly critical of Government contacts with the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which he describes as an ‘Islamist front group’.

In July 2006, Godson sponsored the publication of When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries, in which New Statesman editor Martin Bright denounced the Foreign Office’s attempts to engage with political Islam, notably the Muslim Brotherhood. The pamphlet featured copies of twelve high-level Whitehall documents leaked to Bright by a Foreign Office official.

The individual responsible has reportedly been arrested under the Official Secrets Act, but Policy Exchange can nevertheless claim some success in influencing Government policy.

In October last year, Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly called for a ‘fundamental rebalancing’ of the Government’s relations with Muslim organizations, a move that was widely seen as a repudiation to the MCB.

There are good reasons to be concerned about Dean Godson’s role in bringing about this change in policy. He has made no secret of his own advocacy of ‘political warfare.’ It is clear from the historical precedents that he cites, and the methodology that his brother describes, that deception and covert manipulation are an integral part of ‘political warfare.’

Journalism influenced by this covert action approach clearly invites scepticism. There is likely to be a hidden agenda, in line with Roy Godson’s injunction that: “to be effective, covert propaganda must be co-ordinated with overall policy. It serves little purpose to dabble in the trade unless there are important strategic goals to be achieved.” There are also likely to be unverifiable claims that should be treated with caution.

An intriguing episode from 2006 illustrates the importance of both these caveats. This will be examined in part II of this series of articles.

[Mark Gobell]

Whilst publishing reports that appear to be, at least in part, based on falsified evidence that further encourage communal enmity, distrust and instability, the other half of Dean Godson's mind simultaneously counsels against the teaching of some historical truths, because imbuing students with inconvenient facts like the Irish Potato Famine would threaten that "long term stability." Better not mention things like illegal invasions, mass bombing or genocide in the Middle East then eh Deano?

[Mark Gobell]

Osama Saeed

[Mark Gobell]

Dean Godson in failed election bid horror !

The eminently unbiased and peaceable Dean Godson stood as Conservative candidate for Great Grimsby in the May 1997 General Election.

He came second.

Just think, instead of not apologising for forgery and falsification of non-peer reviewed fiction, he could have actually been sulking, live on TV, from the Tory back benches for the last ten years, where, apart from the odd, all expenses paid trip to Tel Aviv, he might just have been whipped to keep his big fat Zionist mouth shut.

With not a single conflict of interest declared nor a single forged expenses receipt in sight. Naturally.

Just a thought.

You can add your comments to Peter Barron's Newsnight blog here

[Mark Gobell]

Iniside the murky muckiness of Think (think Stink) Tanks.

From this excellent Ministry of Truth piece on New Labour's most favoured independent charity and policy think tank The Smith Institute.

Well worth a read, or two, if only to appraise oneself of some possible, no, probable political context to the current debate and to illustrate just who is behind some of the most politically influential tag team trolling there is and just how it is done.

For balance it also covers the oh so very wholesome composition of Policy Exchange also.

[TonyGosling]

Spinprofiles wiki web pages on Dean Godson and the Policy Exchange attached

[Mark Gobell]

Ministry of Truth Can I have a receipt for that?

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Muslim bookshop considering legal action against think tank
By Lucy Clapham

A HIGH Wycombe bookshop, which became the centre of a controversy about extremist Muslim literature, has said it may take legal action against the political think tank who threw it into the spotlight following a BBC investigation.

The Muslim Education Centre in Totteridge Drive was mentioned on Wednesday's Newsnight after it was included in the report The Hijacking of British Islam - How extremist literature is subverting mosques in the UK, published by Tory think tank Policy Exchange in October.

The document said seven books containing extremist material were found at the education centre by Policy Exchange researchers.
advertisement

But the BBC team say they have uncovered evidence showing some of the receipts for the books said to have been bought by the think tank's researchers around the country were forged............(............................)[/url]

[Mark Gobell]

Telegraph

[kbo234]

Mr Godson obviously believes that the best form of defence is attack.......particularly when one's position is indefensible......from today's Independent.


Right-wing research group threatens to sue 'Newsnight'

By Emily Dugan
Published: 15 December 2007

A right-wing think-tank whose research came under fire on BBC2's Newsnight has threatened legal action against the current affairs programme.

When the Policy Exchange, which has close links with the Conservative Party, released a report entitled The Hijacking Of British Mosques in October the issue received widespread coverage.

But a Newsnight investigation claimed there were inconsistencies in the evidence used in the report. It called into question an allegation that a quarter of the 100 mosques visited by a research team for Policy Exchange were selling extremist literature.

Following the report, aired on Wednesday night, Policy Exchange issued a statement calling Newsnight's broadcast "libellous and perverse". It added it was "in legal consultations about action in this matter" .

Researchers hired by the Policy Exchange found that 25 mosques were selling material that fostered extremism. Receipts from book purchases made by the undercover researchers were then given to Newsnight to aid coverage of the story. But, upon examination of the receipts, Newsnight researchers became wary.

The programme claimed that some of the handwriting on the receipts had been written by the same person – despite the think-tank purporting they came from separate mosques.

Some slips even featured the wrong address for the mosque that was supposed to have issued them, Newsnight said. And when the programme visited some of the mosques in question, they filmed religious leaders claiming never to have seen the receipts or the books that were supposed to be sold from there.

The report, on Wednesday, was followed by a heated exchange between the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, and Dean Godson, research director at Policy Exchange.

Mr Godson was defensive from the outset. "We're very confident in all of this", he said. "This remains the most important report that's ever been produced on Islamic literature in this country".

But Mr Paxman became more accusatory. "You are claiming that you had evidence that these books had been bought in these mosques, and that evidence is quite clearly, in expert opinion, fabricated," he said.

Rounding on the programme and its editor, Peter Barron, Mr Godson concluded: "The big problem is Newsnight".

[blackbear]

Gilding the Lily ....????

The Tory think tank, The Policy Exchange is under fire from Newsnight. At stake, specifically, is the credibility of their recent report, the Hijacking of British Islam.

More generally at stake is the reputation of The Policy Exchange itself.

Osama Saeed summarises the Newsnight allegations as follows:..

http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/

Comments......102

[John White]

Cor! Count the adhominem smears in the produce of godson's potty mouth...

[Thermate911]

How deeply Newspeak ironic that this creep is called God Son.

My main reason for posting here, though, is to query all you assiduous 'insiders' on just how much more information and research is necessary before we can pull down this deadly, out-of-control, pack of cards? Must we wait for the police to go on strike?

How much longer before all these madmen (and women!) are hauled before the HR court in Strasbourg, starting with Cossiga?

How much longer will the majority on this benighted planet accept and bow to the mouthings of criminals?

How much longer before a majority come to realise that they have the answer within, if only they could be given sufficient spiritual space to recognise their inherent power to change matters for the betterment of all?

How much longer?
.

[TonyGosling]

The biggest news story of the year so far proves the hypothesis that the far right are fabricating evidence to discredit Muslims.
These little Nazis have to be stopped right now!

Part 1

Link


Part 2

Link


Part 3 - jeremy Paxman interviews Dean Godson, director of Policy Exchange

Link