Tuesday, November 17, 2009 

The Sun's non-birthday and Graham Dudman's letter to the PCC.

How can you trust a newspaper which even lies about its age? The Sun itself would have you believe that today is its 40th birthday, as would the adverts which the paper is running, featuring various "celebrities" quoting some of its more famous headlines, although strangely it omits both "GOTCHA!" and "THE TRUTH", just as (in)famous as the others mentioned. The only real significant thing about 40 years ago today is that it was the first time the paper was published as a tabloid - it had been a broadsheet since the 15th of September 1964, after emerging from the ashes of the Daily Herald - and under the ownership of a certain Rupert Murdoch. He also lied from the very start - he told the IPC, whom he bought it from, that it would be a "straightfoward, honest newspaper".

Murdoch's pledge that it would always be a straightforward, honest newspaper, has naturally been carried down over the years from hack to hack, from editor to editor. During Rebekah Wade's reign, Graham Dudman, the paper's managing editor, did almost all the required television and radio interviews and appearances, as Wade herself was too shy and retiring, as well as liable also to put her foot in it. In the same way it seems, rather than the editor herself respond to such nuisances as a letter from the Press Complaints Commission investigating an article potentially in breach of its code, it fell instead to Dudman to do it. At long last, Tim over at Bloggerheads has posted the letter which Dudman sent to the PCC in response to their request for more information over the "TERROR TARGET SUGAR" Glen Jenvey report back in January. It makes for a highly revealing insight into how the tabloids regard both the PCC and those that complain to the organisation:

The complaint suggests that "the intent of the thread was to start a polite letter writing campaign to persuade the influential Jewish people that what Israel is doing in Gaza is wrong". With respect, we do not agree that the intent of the thread was simply to start a "polite letter writing campaign". It is clear from even just a cursory review that the Website carries numerous extreme views and is widely used by Islamic extremists to discuss radical and/or extremist subjects. We have reviewed both the thread which prompted the article and other threads on the Website and we have no doubt that it was reasonable for The Sun to describe the Website as a "fanatics website". For example, the Website contains one message board entitled "Does anyone here recognise Israel's right to exist" which contains threads that include quotes such as "Muslims are a patient people. Jews are a greedy people. Who will win in the end?" (posted by 'AbuMusaab' at 7:56am on 4 January 2009); "you are a fool if you think that the Muslims will let you live in peace" (posted by 'SunniHammer' at 8:39am on 4 January 2009); and "you won't find any peace until all of you thieves were kicked out from the Palestine inshallah" (posted by 'Ammarcool' at 9:56am on 4 January 2009). These are just three examples.

In light of this, in our view, to regard Islamic extremists as being in the business of sending "polite letters" is naive and extreme. This is based on the expert opinion of Glen Jenvey, an expert in radical Islam. In any event, as a matter of common knowledge, we are unaware of a single incident of Islamic extremists writing polite letters. It is quite obviously a euphemism which almost does not require expert opinion to establish.


Rather then than even allow a modicum of respect for the complainer, Dudman sets out from the very beginning to smear Ummah.com, just indeed as Jenvey himself did. Just as you could cherry-pick from the MySun forums what could be regarded as "extreme" views, the Sun finds a few predictably hot-headed opinions, as was the mood back in January, and presents this as evidence that the site was and is an extremist hotbed. Such extremists couldn't possibly then conceive of such a polite and dignified way of expressing their opinion by sending "polite letters"; it simply has to be a euphemism. And what's more, our expert, Glen Jenvey, says so.

Dudman then goes on to contradict himself:

The matters raised in the article are plainly matters of public interest. Exposing, even at the earliest of stages, a proposed conspiracy to cause harm to prominent British Jews is a matter that The Sun is and should be free to report. It is not the case that public interest is and can only be served by reporting such matters to the police.

Err, except the Sun is only claiming that a list was to be drawn up, or so Dudman claims. Even at earliest stages? This drawing up, as noted previously, was hardly moving fast and "Abuislam", aka Jenvey, had to keep bumping the thread to get any sort of story which he could sell on.

Central to the complaint is the suggestion that Glen Jenvey, the terrorism expert quoted by The Sun in the article is connected to (or in fact may possibly be) a freelance journalist called 'Richard Tims'. Additionally the complaint suggests that it was 'Richard Tims' who posted the thread on the Website using the avatar 'Abuislam' which is referred to in the article. We have spoken to Mr Jenvey regarding the complaint, particularly in relation to the allegation that he is in some way connected to 'Richard Tims'. Mr Jenvey has categorically denied that he is, or that he uses the name, 'Richard Tims' or, indeed, that he ever met anyone by that name. Mr Jenvey also denies that he ever posted any threads on the Website.

Well, to quote Mandy Rice-Davis, seeing as we're going back 40 years plus today, he would say that, wouldn't he? Since then Jenvey has of course admitted that he was Abuislam, and as a result the Sun, in its half-hearted apology, put all the blame on him. That this was a complete failure to abide by the most basic practices of journalism, that you check and check again, and that you don't rely on the word of just one person unless you absolutely have to is neither here nor there for this straightfoward, honest newspaper.

We should add that Mr Jenvey is an extremely well respected expert on terrorism who has contributed to various radio and television programmes in this country. In this respect, we make the following points:

Since the letter was written Jenvey has been completely discredited. It's true that Jenvey didn't just dupe the Sun, but also the likes of the BBC repeatedly, and that reflects badly on all involved. That doesn't however excuse the Sun from relying on others rather conducting its own investigation into Jenvey's credentials.

5. To confirm, Mr Jenvey was not paid for his contribution to the article.

As Tim points out, this is a nifty piece of sleight of hand by Dudman. Jenvey almost certainly was paid by the Sun, but indirectly, through the South West News Service news agency which supplied the paper with the story to begin with.

The complainant would also be trying to discredit Mr Jenvey (and by implication the article published in The Sun on 7 January) without any foundation. In this respect, the complaint includes a link to a website (http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2009/01/glen_jenvey_has.asp) which contains a number of extremely serious allegations against Mr Jenvey. As well as the allegation that Mr Jenvey, 'Richard Tims' and 'Abuislam' are all one and the same, which I deal with above, the website also makes a number of personal attacks on Mr Jenvey. Those attacks include allegations, amongst many others, regarding Mr Jenvey's sexuality as well as claims that he is a paedophile (eg "or is it that he likes young muslin boys around?"). Mr Jenvey categorically denies that he is a paedophile. In this respect, we understand that Mr Jenvey has been in a stable relationship for the past 16 years. The website also contains a purported interview with an individual claiming to be Mr Jenvey's daughter. This interview is manifestly false. Mr Jenvey does not have a daughter.

It's best here to quote Tim again:

Unlike other 'leading' bloggers, I take responsibility for the comments that appear on my website, but it cannot be stressed enough that the 'daughter' content did not originate on my site, and was instead repeated under comments as part of a background information dump by a well-meaning comment contributor. It was irrelevant to the body of the post, and was publicly dismissed as irrelevant the time. In this letter, Dudman only makes passing mention of the body of the post (i.e. the part containing key evidence showing their expert to be a fraud) and instead focuses on the comments underneath, greatly misrepresenting their content and context in many ways, not the least of which being:

- The 'paedophile' text (as with the other text about Jenvey's daughter) was mirrored information from another website posted to my website as a comment, and allowed as background only. It did not originate from me, nor was it highlighted, encouraged or expanded upon in any way. The Sun imply otherwise. Further, the text The Sun claim was published by me 'to discredit Glen Jenvey' does not accuse Glen Jenvey of being a paedophile, as a wider quote from that passage reveals ("'is bin laden a gay? or is it that he just likes young muslin boys around? is jihad a form of child sex?"). The comment is about Osama Bin Laden, and was originally posted to ummah.com under the name 'saddam01', which according to Ummah.com is yet another alias of... Glen Jenvey! Yes, the 'paedophile' text wasn't *about* Glen Jenvey, and it was most likely written *by* Glen Jenvey!

(As many of you are aware, Glen Jenvey later went on to falsely accuse me of being a paedophile. Repeatedly. On hundreds of websites. What role this letter/accusation played in that decision and if Jenvey was confused enough to believe that I had done anything like that to him is unknown at this time.)


It has to be said that both myself and Tim deeply regret and apologise for linking to, providing space for and discussing the supposed interview with Jenvey's "daughter". In mitigation, as soon as we became aware that the "interview" was probably not genuine, we put up disclaimers, and when it became apparent that it was false, I removed the information completely from my post without any prompting. Are we perhaps ourselves then hypocrites for so quickly latching onto that information? More than possibly. Is it something we've learned from and will not be repeating? Most certainly. The same can hardly be said for the Sun on that score. At least though we didn't claim in correspondence to the press regulator that our source had been smeared as a paedophile by the complainant when the source himself then went on to, err, smear the person who exposed him as a fraud in exactly the same terms.

It is our view, from what I set out above, that the complainant has not been full and frank with the PCC, both as to the nature of the information discussed on the Website and the implication that Mr Jenvey was in some way responsible for posting one of the threads referred to in the article. This is a further matter which should be taken into consideration.

If it hadn't been for Jenvey finally admitting on the Donal MacIntyre show that he had been Abuislam and the entire report was a fabrication, then Dudman's attempts at smearing Ummah.com might well have succeeded. As we've seen over the last week, with the PCC "investigation" into the Guardian's allegations about phone hacking at the News of the World, the PCC is the kind of organisation that is only willing to take even the slightest action when it catches newspapers breaking the code the equivalent of red-handed. Even then the Sun only ran an apology on its 12th page, when the initial report had been a front page splash, and in effect took no responsibility, instead heaping it all on Jenvey's shoulders. Alan Rusbridger's resignation from the PCC's code committee, almost certainly a reaction to the whitewash it produced over the NotW phone hacking, where it effectively condemned the Guardian more than it did the NotW, might yet trigger some soul-searching at a regulator which has never been weaker than it is now. That is though just how those who fund it and sit on its boards like it; it will take a scandal even bigger than the Jenvey one or even the furore over Jan Moir's homophobia to persuade the industry that its regulator needs some teeth.

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11/17/2009 10:27:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, October 09, 2009 

Terror target Madonna?

Following on from the still reverberating TERROR TARGET SUGAR/Glen Jenvey Sun story, Unity has uncovered an until now unnoticed similar story in the Sunday People from the very same week back in January, this time focusing on posts supposedly left on the Islambase forum about Madonna. Interesting here is that the site targeted, islambase.info, is of a much more decidedly radical flavour than Ummah.com was and is. Islambase has, as Unity points out, been of special interest to those involved in the tiny "anti-jihadist" movement, with the Centre of Social Cohesion, ran by the neo-con Douglas Murray, producing an entire tedious report on it (PDF). Westminster Journal has two equally fascinating articles, written by a "Guy Baldwin", which show even jihadists enjoy pornography, amazingly enough. More recently a document posted on scribd.com entitled "Islambase exposed", since deleted and also now vanished from the Google cache, contained the personal details of many of those who post on the forum. Finally, there is also an Islambase Exposed blog, linked to one of the "Cheerleaders", which has a post containing very personal details on one of the key members of the forum.

Undoubtedly these connections are just simple coincidence. It's also doubtless coincidence that the Sunday People story, written by one Daniel Jones, was the person being contacted by Edward Barker, one of Patrick Mercer's office staff, with a view to getting a Glen Jenvey sourced report into his paper almost two months after Jenvey's Ummah.com fabrication was exposed.

As Unity concludes:
The role of Mercer’s office in, seemingly, placing dubiously sourced terrorism-related stories into the British press, at a time when Mercer was (and still) serving as Chairman of a Commons sub-committee on counter-terrorism, is a matter that Tim is still working on and although, at present, there’s no evidence to link Mercer or his staff directly to the faked Madonna story, it nevertheless seems clear that there is altogether more that needs to scrutinised in all this than just the [lack of] ethics of Britain’s tabloid press.

The plot continues to thicken.

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10/09/2009 10:35:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, September 25, 2009 

Patrick Mercer has some questions to answer.

The response of Patrick Mercer to Tim Ireland's publishing of an email showing that his office was still working with Glen Jenvey almost two months after the "TERROR TARGET SUGAR" story was shown to be entirely his own work is a classic example of a politician in a hole not knowing when to stop digging. After previously stating to the Guardian that his office had never worked with him, about as blatant a lie as it was possible to come up with, he's now arguing semantics over exactly what "working with his office" entailed.

Tim has now posted 10 questions for Mercer, ones which he seems unlikely to get an answer to:

1. Sometimes Jenvey's information checked out, and sometimes it didn't. Did you 'check out' the SUGAR IS TERROR REVENGE TARGET story of 7 January 2009 by looking at the evidence before The Sun published?

2. Did you 'check out' the SUGAR IS TERROR REVENGE TARGET story of 7 January 2009 by looking at the evidence published at Bloggerheads.com (after The Sun had published)?

3. Regardless of the perceived reliability of that evidence, did you then and do you now hold the view expressed by The Sun to the PCC that "sending polite letters" is "obviously a euphemism" for something far more sinister if/when published on Ummah.com (on the basis that it is a "fanatics website")?

4. At what stage (and on which date) did you first realise that Jenvey had indeed fabricated the evidence used by The Sun to allege the presence of extremism at Ummah.com, and the active targeting of named celebrities?

5. What was it that finally caused your office to part company with Jenvey? Was it the above discovery, you becoming personally aware of Glen Jenvey's false claim that his accuser was a convicted paedophile, or something else?

6. Was there ever any stage after you regarded your professional relationship to be over that your office continued working with Glen Jenvey (i.e. in a manner akin to the recently-released email to The People newspaper), but without your knowledge?

7. What disciplinary action (if any) was taken against the staff members who (maybe) worked with Jenvey against your wishes, (perhaps) did not show you relevant 'Sugar' evidence or (definitely) did not alert you to Jenvey's false accusations of paedophilia? What corrective measures (if any) were made to your procedures to avoid a similar compromising breakdown of communication?

8. You appear to be claiming that the quote used by The Sun in their letter to the PCC is now at least two years old. How old was it when The Sun used it (on 27 January 2009)?

9. Did The Sun check with you before using that quote in their letter to the PCC?

10. While they do conflict, you have released public statements about the severing of your relationship with Glen Jenvey. However, there is no statement on record about you severing links with another former associate and amateur 'terror expert' Dominic Wightman, and he appears to be suggesting that still support him. If you no longer have a professional/working relationship with Dominic Wightman, on what date did you sever links with him, and why was this decision taken?


All while this has been going on Tim has been the victim of a smear campaign, first by Jenvey himself, and now by Dominic Wightman, as well as by others who have been touting his home address around Twitter. You might well want to let your own MP know about what some high profile Tories have been involved in.

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9/25/2009 09:55:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 

Well, that's that then.

A to scale approximation of the apology compared to the original story.

Another week, another "apology" from the Sun over their disastrous in retrospect "TERROR TARGET SUGAR" story:

OUR story on January 7 about a 'hit list' of top British Jews on the website Ummah.com was based on claims by Glen Jenvey who last week confessed to duping several newspapers and Tory MP Patrick Mercer by fabricating stories about Islamic fundamentalism.Following Mr Jenvey's confession, we apologise to Ummah.com for the article which we now accept was inaccurate.

In the pantheon of apologies, this is hardly the most contrite or convincing of ones. It also gives next to no context: what in the article was inaccurate about Ummah.com? The nearest suggestion we get is that Islamic fundamentalism was involved. Anyone wanting to know more would have to search or go to the Press Complaints Commission's site to find out what the actual complaint was about:

A representative of www.ummah.com complained that an article had inaccurately suggested that the website was a forum for Islamic extremists. The story was based largely on the views of a ‘terror expert' named Glen Jenvey who expressed serious concerns about the website. The piece quoted a number of comments posted on ummah.com and suggested that extremists were seeking to ‘target' well-known British Jews. The complainant said that Mr Jenvey's claims were unfounded and that there was, in fact, some evidence that he himself had posted the quoted comments in order to create the story.

Resolution:

The PCC's investigation, launched in January 2009, had to be placed on hold for a period of time because of a concurrent, related legal action. However, on 13 September, Glen Jenvey confessed publicly that he had, indeed, posted the comments on ummah.com which became the basis for the Sun's story. He admitted having deceived various media outlets, individuals and organisations. Mr Jenvey's confession was reported by the Sun on 15 September. In light of this development, the PCC re-opened its enquiries into the complaint from the representative of ummah.com. The complaint was resolved on 23 September when the Sun published the following apology under the heading ‘Ummah.com':

OUR story on January 7 about a ‘hit list' of top British Jews on the website Ummah.com was based on claims by Glen Jenvey who last week confessed to duping several newspapers and Tory MP Patrick Mercer by fabricating stories about Islamic fundamentalism. Following Mr Jenvey's confession, we apologise to Ummah.com for the article which we now accept was inaccurate.

The apology also appeared on the Sun's website.


In a way it's a shame that Ummah.com has accepted the Sun's apology, as the PCC will now consider the matter closed. Not accepting it and forcing the PCC to adjudicate and therefore comment further on the Sun's complete abandonment of normal journalistic practice, with the resulting adjudication then needing to be published in full by the paper would have been preferable, but it's understandable that Ummah.com didn't want to take it any further. One of the arguments that Graham Dudman used in his original letter to the PCC which completely defended the story was that Ummah.com in fact was, by anyone's standards, a "fanatics website", with a few select out of context quotes chosen to back up his allegation. Knowing the lack of backbone which the PCC repeatedly displays, they could well of taken this as a mitigating factor, even though the story turned out to be a tissue of lies and that all of Glen Jenvey's supposed credentials, which Dudman lists, were worthless.

The whole incident is though instructive of how the tabloids deal with such complaints. Even when an article which appeared on the front page and made such startling accusations and claims is shown to have been completely inaccurate, the only thing the paper has had to do in any form of reparation is publish the pathetic "clarification" at the top of this post, which was printed in the paper itself on page 12. Any casual reader would think that the Sun was the victim of Jenvey as much as Ummah.com was, when this could not be further from the actuality.

It remains to be seen where Alan Sugar's legal action against the paper will take us, although considering that they have now accepted that the "article was inaccurate", a settlement seems to be the most likely result. As for the others involved at the periphery, such as Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, Tim has just revealed information which shows despite Mercer's subsequent denials, his office had worked and was still working with Jenvey over a month and a half after the Sun's story was shown to most likely be Jenvey's own invention, this time attempting to get his handiwork into the People. The fallout from a front page tabloid newspaper story in early January seems likely to continue for some time yet.

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9/23/2009 10:48:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 

Some closure to the Glen Jenvey/TERROR TARGET SUGAR saga.

An indication of just what a disgraceful and shameless newspaper the Sun really is can be seen in their non-apology/clarification for the "TERROR TARGET SUGAR"/Glen Jenvey story which has been posted on their website today. Finally stirred into action by Jenvey's appearance on the Donal MacIntyre show on Radio 5 Live on Sunday, they have naturally passed all of the blame straight onto his already quaking shoulders:

A PHONEY terrorism "expert" has confessed to duping newspapers and a senior politician.

Glen Jenvey has admitted making up stories about Islamic fundamentalism, including a faked list of prominent Jewish "targets", which included Lord Alan Sugar.

He revealed his scheming in an interview with BBC reporter Tom Mangold, aired on Sunday's edition of Donal MacIntyre's Radio Five Live show.

Jenvey told how he fabricated the list of Jewish targets by posing as a fundamentalist on an extremist website where he urged others to suggest names.

He then leaked the made-up list to a trusted news agency, used by The Sun, and online forum Ummah.com was wrongly accused of being used to prepare a backlash against UK Jews.

Jenvey - who had been described as "an extremely capable and knowledgeable analyst" by Tory MP Patrick Mercer - said: "I'm fully responsible for the story. The Sun was deceived.

"The Sun did not know that I was behind the postings.

"I would like to apologise to all the British Jews who we scared and I'd like to apologise to The Sun newspaper."

Jenvey was not of course fully responsible for the story; he hardly forced the Sun to publish what had been supplied to them by the South West News Service, whom he had initially provided the story to (and also presumably paid him through). The fact remains that there was no story here, even with Jenvey's posts on the Ummah.com thread as abuislam. It was a thread, as the initial post pointed out, to use entirely peaceful methods (writing letters) to supporters of Israel. You can criticise the fact they chose to specifically targets Jews, when being Jewish and supporting Israel does not always go hand in hand, as well as some of the more "colourful" language used by some of the posters in the thread, but there was still no story here, even when "abuislam", now exposed as Glen Jenvey, suggested doorstep protests, which while unpleasant, are not illegal and which was not going to mean "terrorists" or "Islamic extremists" descending on the doorstep of Alan Sugar, David Miliband or Mark Ronson.

This story is an example of the Sun's fundamental contempt for the very standards of journalism. Any reputable news organisation which still somehow imagined that there was a story here would have checked, checked and then checked the "facts" again. They would have made certain that abuislam was not one and the same as the person providing them with the story, especially considering the way that abuislam was quite clearly acting as an agent provocateur in the thread, "bumping" it repeatedly, and resurrecting it finally three days after the last post. They would have checked whether there was any realistic prospect of one person's suggestion on a forum being put into action, and contacted those named and both alerted them and asked whether they had been sent either letters or had protesters outside their houses. They would have further checked Glen Jenvey's credentials, not just relying on the word of a Conservative MP. Then, and only then, would they perhaps have published the story, and even then it was hardly deserving of front page status, or the ludicrous claim that Alan Sugar was to be a "TERROR TARGET".

The real story here though is that Jenvey, after his association/collaboration with other "amateur" 'terror experts' such as Dominic Wightman (aka Whiteman) had been supplying the tabloids with either false or hugely exaggerated stories of terrorist threats, with the help of the Tory MP Patrick Mercer. The Sun had worked with Jenvey before, and not caring whether his claims were accurate or not, had no reason or inclination to doubt him this time round. It just so happens that Jenvey had become lazy and left this time a trail which Tim Ireland picked up (and, I must add, which I myself started off on), and who has only been grudgingly credited by the BBC.

Even then the paper could have quickly accepted that its story was ridiculously sensationalist and that this time round they had been had. Instead, the Sun's managing editor Graham Dudman sent a letter to the Press Complaints Commission on the 27th of January which defended every aspect of the story. Tim Ireland will hopefully be revealing the text of the letter in full later in the week, but having seen a copy, I can whet appetites by saying that some of his arguments are truly jaw-dropping.

It's still not clear what action, if indeed any the PCC is going to take against the paper over the story. Indeed, it might well agree with the paper that Jenvey was fully responsible, going by its past record, and that today's non-apology is sufficient. It's also unclear just what Alan Sugar's lawyers will make of Jenvey's confession, considering his decision to sue the paper over the story. What clearly should happen however is that for a front page story of such prominence, which was so categorically wrong in almost every aspect, and may well have scared some prominent Jews, as well as smearing the Ummah.com forum, there should be at the very least a front page apology. It has to remembered this story came at a time of high tension surrounding the Israeli attack on Gaza, with angry well-attended demonstrations taking place almost every weekend during the conflict, with more than potential to substantially harm community relations further. It was also yet again a Sun story on Muslims which portrayed them in at best a very bad light, straight out of the school which led to the £30,000 payment to the bus driver Arunas Raulynaitis for claiming he ordered passengers off so he could pray, and of the non-existent "Windsor Muslim yobs" who had supposedly attacked a house which soldiers had looked at with a view to moving in. I don't think I can really add to what I wrote at the time of the former:

It goes without saying that such unsubstantiated journalism threatens community relations and is often used by extremists, even after such reports have been proved false, to stir up hate. Reporting such topics requires great care, care which the Sun has neither the time nor the inclination to use.

Nor has it the courage, the honesty or the humility to admit when it gets a story so drastically wrong.

(Update: edited in line with the Sun - Tabloid Lies cross-post.)

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9/15/2009 11:31:00 PM | | | links to this post

Sunday, September 13, 2009 

Glen Jenvey on Donal MacIntyre.

The latest twist in the Glen Jenvey saga is his appearance today on Donal MacIntyre's show on 5 Live, where he again admits to being abuislam, which you can listen to here. Not too much credit given to Tim or indeed the whole Sun Lies team, but then the MSM is loth to give the blogosphere any kudos at all.

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9/13/2009 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, August 27, 2009 

Yet more Glen Jenvey etc.

Spinwatch has a new article up which is by far the most comprehensive attempt yet to link together the "network" which Glen Jenvey was formerly a part of, and includes details on others that have been featured in the Sun's pages as "terror experts", such as Neil Doyle, whom this blog has mentioned on a number of occasions.

It also mentions the Sun's reply to the Press Complaints Commission concerning the "TERROR TARGET SUGAR" story, which Ummah.com had protested about:

In its response to the Press Complaints Commission, a copy of which has been given to Spinwatch, The Sun argued that, ‘to regard Islamic extremists as being in the business of sending ‘polite letters’ is naïve and extreme. This is based on the expert opinion of Glen Jenvey, an expert in radical Islam…it is quite obviously a euphemism…’

Yes, obviously... that's why the thread had to be bumped repeatedly by "Abuislam" to try to get everyone interested in the business of sending "polite letters", and why he also had to suggest turning up at their houses in person. The letter itself will be of even greater interest once it can be released in full.

The article was sadly written before Jenvey's confession that he was indeed "Abuislam", and so the most crucial part of evidence concerning the fakery and entrapment which Jenvey's group used is not included. I, as well as others, had long been concerned about the likes of Vigil and Westminster Journal and their sensationalistic approach to "watching" jihadists, a vital security activity which they have risked undermining through their selling of ridiculous false stories to tabloids; I had intended to write a "who watches the watchers?" post but never got round to it. It does however further pin down Patrick Mercer as one of Jenvey's main supporters and pushers, someone who ought to have been far more careful and circumspect in his dealings with such individuals, and whom Tim Ireland is still currently in dispute with over what he knew and when.

Elsewhere today, which has been incredibly slow, Love and Garbage's entire Lockerbie tag is essential reading, while the Haribo "fruit fucking" story is almost certainly an example of both churnalism and a company getting its story in the press via an alternative source, ala the "Cab, innit" staple.

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8/27/2009 09:06:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, August 20, 2009 

The latest in the Glen Jenvey/Ummah.com/TERROR TARGET SUGAR saga.

In a revelation that will surprise absolutely no one, Glen Jenvey, of TERROR TARGET SUGAR fame, has admitted that he posted the messages on the Ummah.com forum which led to the Sun's article during the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza in January. Sun - Tabloid Lies contributor Richard Bartholomew has confirmed the authenticity of a message sent to Ummah.com's administrators:
Brother i'm sorry for the Allan Sugar story plant. I'm retired now from spying on Muslims. I saw a chance to install fear back in Jews who were killing Muslims.I was wrong to use you and your site.If you need any thing to help you in any way in the name of Allah just ask.

But yes the Sun did not know who posted it.I say sorry to you from my heart. if you want show the police and get me arrested. but with the first ramadaam coming i want to clear my past sin's before i start my fasting and pray.

I would write this on your forum but im blocked out. may Allah reward you for your good work you do.Ameen

Omar Hamza Jenvey

aka

Glen Jenvey

Jenvey's claim that the Sun didn't know that he was the author of the messages is plausible: the story itself was sold to the Sun through an outside news agency, which presumably Jenvey himself contacted. This doesn't however excuse the Sun's sexing up of the story, claiming that the likes of Alan Sugar were on a "hit list" drawn up by "hate-filled Islamic extremists", when all that was proposed outside of the posts by "abuislam" was a letter-writing campaign, and even Jenvey himself only suggested demonstrations outside their houses, nor their abject failure to check that "abuislam" wasn't an agent provocateur. There was no story whatsoever, except in the heads of journalists flailing to provide a UK-centric report on a war which they otherwise couldn't care less about, while also of course continuing the casual demonisation of Muslims, especially those who dare to criticise policies which the Sun and Murdoch press in general support wholeheartedly.

While Jenvey has admitted to what we were already almost certain he had done, I remain concerned about his mental state and his sudden apparent conversion to Islam, especially his supposed involvement with the likes of Omar Bakri Muhammad. It may yet turn out that this is just Jenvey's latest ploy, or rather his latest obsession, as his mental health has always apparently been precarious, but it equally may be that he is being manipulated by those that are just as bad as the anti-Islam brigade that Jenvey previously associated with. Far be it from me to tell someone what they should do, but what I would suggest is that everyone ought to leave Jenvey alone until it is absolutely certain that he is indeed making his own decisions.

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8/20/2009 10:33:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 

Jenvey saga widens even further.

The Glen Jenvey saga continues to simmer nicely. It now appears that Jenvey does not just fabricate messages on Islamic forums with a view to selling the "extremist" results to the media, but also when cornered turns to smearing his foes with predictable allegations of paedophilia, his IP matching the one making comments on Thai websites with the one behind malicious edits to Wikipedia, attributed to Jenvey.

Difficult though it is get your head round, this all began with a Sun front page story which claimed Islamic extremists, in reality a couple of posters on Ummah.com suggesting sending polite letters to Jews in the wake of the Israeli assault on Gaza, were targeting the likes of Alan Sugar. Since then the PCC has begun investigating, Alan Sugar has launched legal action, the ambassador to Afghanistan has been drawn in, a Conservative MP who has worked with Jenvey has become embroiled, and now it seems likely that the police, already contacted by Jenvey himself, will now also become further involved. Almost all the credit goes to Tim Ireland for an exceptional investigation, and one which seems likely to run and run.

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3/18/2009 11:22:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, March 02, 2009 

An apology to Glen Jenvey.

As Tim has discovered, it now seems apparent that despite previous claims on this blog andelsewhere that Glen Jenvey himself was behind the posting of messages on the Ummah.com forum which were subsequently reported in the Sun newspaper under the headline "TERROR TARGET SUGAR", that the messages were in actual fact posted by fanatical Islamic fascists posing as Jenvey in order to discredit him. As a result I humbly apology to Jenvey and wish him well in his battle against the evildoers.

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3/02/2009 11:57:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 

Glen Jenvey fallout widens.

The fallout from the Sun's publishing of the claims of Glen Jenvey on its front page continues to grow - now Alan Sugar himself is starting legal action against the paper, claiming that its publication of the story put his security at risk, rather, it seems, than Ummah.com and its marauding Islamic fanatics with their letters of hate. It remains unclear exactly what Sugar is claiming, although it seems more than likely that he'll be after some sort of settlement, which when libelled in the past he has donated to charity. In any event, the Sun must be deeply regretting its incredibly poor journalism and how much it might potentially cost it, with both a PCC investigation and now a legal battle on its hands.

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2/24/2009 10:14:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, January 12, 2009 

Scum-watch: TERROR TARGET SUGAR lasts less than a week.

As Tim notes, less than a week after publishing claims that Alan Sugar was among a number of "top Jews" due to be targeted by "hate-filled extremists", the Sun's front page article of the 7th of January has mysteriously vanished from the web. As it seems unlikely that the paper will have willing accepted that it was a tissue of lies from start to finish, concocted by its journalists with the help of a supposed former spy called Glen Jenvey, either lawyers have already made contact with the paper or the Press Complaints Commission is presumably investigating and has requested it be taken down for the time being.

The damage though has already been done, as previously stated. Hundreds of sites either reproduced or slightly altered the Sun's story without so much as even doing a cursory check of the facts, which would have only involved visiting the Ummah.com site and looking for the thread in question, which was hardly difficult to find. Those stories will remain up, even when the original has disappeared down the memory hole.

Update: Jon Swaine, who wrote the Telegraph's follow-up report on the Sun's story, emails in:

Hi,

I thought it might be helpful to point out that my take on the Sun's story for telegraph.co.uk is top of the Google News list linked to in your latest post on this subject.

And while your main point - that barely anyone bothered to check the details before ripping off the Sun - clearly stands, in fact I did wait until contacting Sajid at the forum and my story does make clear that it was a call to start a 'polite letter-writing campaign', rather than anything more sinister.

Given that my story is top of the list you link to, and may be read first by your readers, I thought there might be a better way of illustrating your point - eg linking directly to the Mail, PA, Guardian etc versions of the story, which indeed faithlessly reproduce the Sun interpretation.

More than happy to oblige.

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1/12/2009 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, January 08, 2009 

Scum-watch: Glen Jenvey unmasked as "abuislam".

Strangely for what was a front page "exclusive", the Sun has not so much as a single word to say in today's paper about yesterday's entirely concocted claim that Alan Sugar was on a "hit list" drawn up by "hate-filled Islamic extremists" on a "fanatics" website. Perhaps they'd already noted that the Ummah.com forum had produced a press release which denied the allegations in the strongest possible terms, or maybe they felt they'd already done enough, which they certainly had. Google News links to 174 separate news stories, all of which had their origin in the Sun's original, the vast majority without so much as questioning the Sun's claim or double-checking them. Churnalism, as always, had done its work.

Unfortunately for the Sun, their story has even further unravelled. Their own journalists in this instance seem to have only written the story up, or had it sold to them by Glen Jenvey, a so-called anti-terror expert and former spy quoted in yesterday's report as claiming that the result of the naming of certain high profile Jews on Ummah.com would result in 20 to 30 thugs going round their houses, at the least. Jenvey has an interesting past, and as Tim from Bloggerheads who has done most of the digging with some help from others notes, he's been involved in editing his own Wikipedia page, like all the finest egomaniacs, so nothing on there can be trusted in the slightest. Jenvey's page claims that he studied radical Islam at college, spied on Iran for the United States, and also infiltrated the Tamil Tigers. Again, trusting things on the internet is always unwise, but mikimoose in the comments on Tim's original post uncovered a perhaps more enlightening reason for Jenvey's interest in radical Islam:

[snip]
Update 16.03.09: Following the latest by Tim Ireland have fully removed the claims involving Jenvey's non-existent daughter.
[/snip]

Jenvey is linked with another whole host of interesting characters, the online group Vigil, which claims to be monitoring and infiltrating jihadist forums online, both for surveillance purposes and, it seems, with a view to selling stories onto the national press. Vigil themselves deny that Jenvey is a member, although they admit that they have worked with him in the past. While Ummah.com as noted is by no means a radical forum, it has previously attracted extremist sentiment, and other sites have described it as being part of the so-called Londonistan set-up. For such an apparently sophisticated former spy meant to be monitoring incredibly dangerous individuals, Jenvey's exploits on Ummah.com were amateurish to say the least. While yesterday it was thought that "abuislam", the poster on the original thread that attempted to stir the letter writing campaign up into something it wasn't was a freelance journalist called Richard Tims, this appears to have a simple cover for Jenvey himself. Tims' only post on Ummah.com was to link to a website where you could sell stories, now defunct. Unfortunately for Jenvey, posts on other sites spamming sellyourstory.org point to the fact that the site was owned by none other than... Jenvey.

Tim has noted that "abuislam" had tried on a number of other occasions to troll Ummah.com, hoping to catch some bait, presumably to sell to the newspapers, but he failed on each and every occasion, not getting enough for a story to be weaved out of it. First he posted about the prospective release of "terrorist mastermind" Abu Izzadeen, without getting a single reply. Then he went a bit further, asking whether "marital rape" exists, which did spark discussion, but as you would expect, plenty of condemnation and some others in thread wondering about trolling. Next up was asking where the failed nail bomber Nicky Reilly might have been encouraged into carrying out a suicide attack, again without any luck. Probably most interestingly, especially regarding the Sun, he next tried to ask opinions on the Sun's "Help for Heroes" charity single, done in conjunction with the X Factor. One response was his reward, and that was to tell him that they didn't really discuss pop music. Perhaps this was his attempt to cash in on a previous Sun front page story, where the paper claimed that Omar Bakri Muhammad had ranted about the X Factor's involvement with the charity, suggesting that even watching it was committing a form of "muadaat". After failing with a thread on Prince Harry, he finally struck gold with his posts on letter-writing campaign thread.

The best that can be said for the Sun itself is that it was tricked by Jenvey in alerting them to the non-story in the first place, with them chomping at the bit to concoct from the little there was to go on in the Ummah.com thread a supposed "hate-filled Islamic extremist" threat to Alan Sugar and others, not bothering to investigate whether abuislam's interventions were too good to be true. At worst, the Sun has connived with a supposed anti-terror expert in completely fabricating a threat to some of the most prominent Jews in those country, doubtless causing them undue worry at the very least, all while further demonising British Muslims who were only planning to exercise their democratic right to peaceful protest. Whatever the truth, what has happened here is still a scandal; a newspaper caught red-handed, diverting attention away from the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza to completely spurious and invented threats, purely for its own profit and gain. This deserves to be investigated by the Press Complaints Commission at the very least, although Ummah.com is already considering its legal options. The paper might well yet curse doing business with Glen Jenvey.

Update: Fayruz in the comments on Bloggerheads says that Jenvey has no daughter and that the entire interview was invented by the Saviour Sect. I'm not removing the link as yet but just another thing to be kept in mind.

Update 16/03/09: Have fully removed the claims as above.

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Wednesday, January 07, 2009 

Scum-watch: Letter writers turned into "Islamic fanatics".

How then do you report the conflict in Gaza if you're a tabloid based in this country? Convinced that your readers couldn't care less about war in other countries unless it involves us and especially if it involves people with a skin colour other than white, as well as the fact that such reporting costs money, you have to try at all costs to get some sort of link in to what's happening here. Despite 40 being killed in a UN school which the Israelis now apparently privately accept there was no mortar fire from, only the Mail so much as mentioned it on its front page today, and that was on the side away from the utterly vital news involving the phasing out of incandescent light-bulbs.

The Sun though had an exclusive: TERROR TARGET SUGAR their front page shrieks, with EXTREMIST THREAT TO UK JEWS in a banner above it. The online version of the article, which has a rather less hysterical headline with "[H]ate hit list", spells it out pretty clearly:

FEARS grew last night that hate-filled Islamic extremists are drawing up a “hit list” of Britain’s leading Jews — bringing the Middle East conflict terrifyingly close to home.

TV’s The Apprentice boss Sir Alan Sugar and Amy Winehouse record producer Mark Ronson are among prominent names discussed on a fanatics’ website.

...

British anti-terror expert Glen Jenvey is convinced online forum Ummah is being used to prepare a deadly backlash against UK Jews.

Here is the thread on ummah.com which the Sun article appears to be based on. It bares almost no resemblance whatsoever to the Sun or Jenvey's claims. The title of the topic is "[C]ompile a list of those who support Israel, started by saladin1970:

Asalamalykum, it seems that the time is right to compile a list of british people who support Israel

I read this post
"The names and addresses of Wealthy Zionist Jews can be found in the lists of sponsors and contributors of Zionist Charities. The names and addresses of Company Directors that work for Military Industrial Companies that support these tyrannical regimes can be found in publication like Dunn and Bradstreet"

It would be beneficial to start compiling a list so that we can write polite letters reminding them of the injustices of israel and to stop supporting israel

Ah yes, so what's being proposed on this "extremist" website is a deadly letter writing campaign. The thread itself was started on the 29th of December, and there wasn't exactly much headway made except in linking to lists on other websites. Suddenly, "abuislam" two days later bumped the thread up:

Have we got list of top jews and supporters yet we can target? can someone start posting names and addresses.

Saladin continues to link to a load of different pages, urging others on the forum to write to separate organisations to campaign against them, before abuislam suddenly pops up again and directly names some individuals:

Sir Alan Sugar

Alan Howard

David Miliband

Again, there's some further discussion but no indication of any protests that would involve anything other than private representation, until, wait for it, out comes abuislam at 7:31am yesterday with:

(QUOTE:It would be beneficial to start compiling a list so that we can write polite letters reminding them of the injustices of israel and to stop supporting israel ) polite will not work. Target them with Demo's out-side their Home's and Business hit and run demo's showing and exposing their war crimes in their support.

There where then no further posts until an admin posted on the Sun's story and locked the thread.

Ummah.com seems to have already looked into who "abuislam" was and quickly found some rather quite surprising details:

I can confirm that the User "AbuIslam" who was posing as a Muslim on this forum is infact a freelance Journalist by the name of "Richard Tims" who registered on this forum to twist what the original Intent of this thread was for and to make Muslims look bad. Whether he works for the sun or not i dont know.

Abuislam Deliberated added comments on this thread which made is as if this thread was intended to cause harm to names that were mentioned

This has been confirmed from his IP address and Email addresses has he used on this forum and previous usernames

It's obviously impossible to confirm ummah.com's claims, and a quick Google for Richard Tims doesn't turn up any obvious social networking profiles which would confirm there's a Richard Tims who describes himself as a hack, but on the surface the evidence does look rather damning; no one suggested anything other than a letter writing campaign or passing information on to other Muslim organisations for them to make representations, and very few actual names were mentioned until abuislam just happened to name some of the biggest used in the Sun's story, including Sugar and Miliband. Then, probably because even the Sun was going to have difficulties spinning a story out of absolutely nothing, abuislam finally suggested protests outside their homes and businesses, which even then suggests nothing other than unpleasant but within the law doorstep demonstrations.

There isn't even any out and out anti-semitism within the thread, although some will doubtless consider the targeting of individuals simply because they are Jews, regardless of their views on Israel, to be intimidating and most certainly counter-productive. As for the names the Sun mentions, Mark Ronson, Lord Levy and Anthony Julius were not so much as mentioned in the thread itself. They are however all entries on the Jewish Chronicle's list on the 100 most influential Jews, which was linked to on the thread.

Worth quoting is a section from Ummah.com's "press release", which attacks the Sun's article in no uncertain terms:

Examining the adjectives used in The Sun's article gives us an undeniable insight into their intent in publishing this piece; the words "hate", "hit list", "hate-filled", "extremists", "terrifyingly", "fanatics", and "deadly" all appear in the short article. The article mentions anti-Semitic attacks on Jews in Europe, quotes a statement from a figure in Al-Qaeda saying Muslims should attack targets wherever they can, alleges that Hamas call for the killing of Jewish children by saying Jewish people should be targeted anywhere and mentions attacks including an arson raid on a Synagogue. Discerning readers will be able to see this for what it is: a despicable attempt to paint law-abiding, Muslim peace activists - who are campaigning against Israel's actions - as criminal, murderous, anti-Semites, and terrorists. By using the language and imagery of hate and fear, they are instilling these feelings towards Muslims in the hearts and minds of their readers, and this has been an obvious feature of The Sun newspaper for many years.

Around the only accurate comment made in the article regarding the thread on the forum is that as Glen Jenvey says, it has in the past been used by extremists. Considering however that it is a wide open forum, where debate is not strenuously moderated, this is always likely, especially on the internet where intemperate and extreme comment are only a click away on any major forum. Some of those on it are quite clearly militant in their thinking: "kuffar" is used a number of times to describe those that aren't Muslims, alongside the usually illuminating remarks about the "illuminati" and "masons", and on the open press release thread one person has an Israeli flag combined with a swastika as an avatar, while others have avatars regarding the caliphate, potentially indicating support for Hizb-ut-Tahrir or other similar revivalist groupings, but none of this even begins to justify the Sun's twisting of the thread, or their outright scaremongering about the threats facing famous Jews in this country.

Some, like the Ummah.com press release will further link this to the Sun's previous articles about Muslims, whether supposedly telling passengers on their buses to get off so they could pray or attacking the homes soldiers had looked at with the view to moving in as evidence of the paper's Islamophobia. To me it just looks like the Sun doing what it always does: twisting the truth as far as it can to create a "story" while not telling outright lies. That it will further inflame hatred against Muslims who were only proposing a letter writing campaign, and also scare Jewish individuals already concerned at the potential for attacks on them because of Israel's actions in Gaza is just an unfortunate by-product of the Sun's constant need to keep shifting copies and making money. Nothing else apart from that matters, and if other people get hurt, so be it.

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1/07/2009 10:45:00 PM | | | links to this post

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