iERA have posted a
response to our report
‘Evangelising Hate’It is signed by Saleem Chagtai, the Head of Public Relations of iERA. Our report notes how Saleem believes that Ex-Muslims deserve to be killed in an ideal Islamic state. He also has justified the idea that gay people are worthy of being killed, amongst other extremist, intolerant ideas. So there is a comical element to iERA’s rebuttal of a report that highlights their promotion of hateful, extremist ideas, being signed by one of their most prominent promoters of hateful, extremist ideas.
One section of their response though requires attention. They say:
[the report] falsely attempts to link Ifthekar Jaman to iERA just because he wore one of iERA’s T-Shirts (which anyone is free to do, even Maryam Namazie) and it unscrupulously cites Hassan Farooq as a “senior member” of iERA when he has no affiliation to the organisation
Iftekhar Jaman is the man killed in Syria whilst fighting for the Jihadi group ISIS. Hassan Farooq is the ‘dawah activist’ who posted messages online praising Hitler, celebrating the Holocaust and calling for violence to be committed against Jews.
In a photograph posted on his Twitter account on April 14th Iftekhar Jaman can be seen posing in signature yellow iERA t-shirts with the slogan ‘Is Life Just a Game?’ alongside Hassan Farooq
For iERA to claim that it was just a coincidence that they were wearing iERA t-shirts, and that there is no affiliation between iERA and the Portsmouth and Newham Dawah Teams, of which Jaman and Farooq were activists of respectively, is misleading.
Both the Newham and Portsmouth groups were effectively affiliated and co-operative with iERA. They were in a sense local ‘dawah’ evangelical franchises aided and cultivated by iERA.
One of the programmes that iERA runs is ‘Mission Dawah’
http://www.missiondawah.com/iERA essentially trains and provides resources for local Dawah groups.
iERA are the mother organisation, and these groups are its adopted children.
Both Portsmouth Dawah Team and Newham Dawah Team were affiliated with iERA through receipt of resources for evangelical mission, and as can be seen from the picture of Iftekhar Jaman and Hassan Farooq, the groups would co-operate logistically too.
So for iERA to claim that Iftekhar Jaman and Hassan Farooq had no affiliation to iERA despite being activists for iERA affiliated groups is dishonest and disingenuous to say the least.
Here is a facebook page from December 2012 that states that Iftekhar Jaman was one of the two main people to take care of the Portsmouth Dawah Team’s table in Guildhall Square.
Here is a facebook page showing Portsmouth Dawah Team using an iERA banner
A Facebook post in which Portsmouth Dawah Team take receipt of literature and materials from iERA
Facebook pages showing the affiliation between Portsmouth Dawah Team and iERA and iERA resources being promoted and used by them
A Facebook page describing the links and support iERA provides to their affiliated group Newham Dawah Team
A video in which one of the main leaders of iERA, Abdur Raheem Green, tells people to support the Newham Dawah Team
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUw2QXdcOoUIn this video Hassan Farooq is interviewed with the Newham Dawah Team whilst wearing iERA t-shirts and at around 17 minutes he discusses how they used iERA evangelical material 'Is Life Just A Game' cards during their prosletysing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JutlxQEhD2gClearly, these two men were members of groups under the influence, inspiration, and material support of iERA.
Topic: iERA's response to 'Evangelising Hate' report