Last month, I commented on the decision to give Soumaya Ghannoushi a column on Comment is Free, in which she puffed her father’s party, An Nadha. At the time, I asked whether the Guardian would give a column to Marine Le Pen.
The next day, the Guardian ran an article by Intissar Kherigi, in which she wrote about the October 18 movement: coalition which includes Rachad Ghannoushi’s An Nadha. There was some discussion of Ms Kherigi’s politics on the thread, when it emerged that Ms Kherigi had worked for the British Muslim Initiative and had co-organised events for Islam Expo. She was also the Vice-President of the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations. All three are Muslim Brotherhood front organisations.
The Guardian deleted all these comments.
Well, surprise surprise, it now turns out that Intissar Kherigi is yet another daughter of the very fruitful Rachad Ghannoushi. From The Morning Star:
Ms Kherigi, whose father Rachid Ghannouchi is the leader of Tunisia’s banned Islamic En-Nahda movement, added: “Now it’s up to the international community to decide whether to continue its duplicitous and short-sighted policies or to really examine its old assumptions and priorities and readjust itself to the realities of a new Middle East.”
Middle East expert Dr Omar Ashour told the conference that the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt had successfully “removed the head of the system” but they had not got rid of the apparatus around the ousted dictatorships.
Continued solidarity and resistance was crucial to bring about real democratic change in both countries, he warned.
Ms Kherigi also tackled the West’s growing use of political Islam as a bogeyman to justify any clampdown on attempts by people to win democracy.
Let’s remind ourselves of dad’s politics, shall we?
Here is the old fellow declaring other Muslims to be “kuffar“, trying to get secularists sacked, supporting suicide bombing, and accusing intellectuals (falsely) of defaming Mohammed. Here are a few of the men he identifies as his political heroes:
I dedicate it also to my symbolic fathers and on top of the list the shahid Hassan al-Bannah, Mawlana Abu al-A’la al-Mawdudi, al-shahid Sayyed Qutb, our professor Malek Ben Nabi, and the mujaddid and leader Hassan al-Turabi. I also dedicate it to the leader of the modern Islamic revolution al-Imam al-Khomayni
Great. Just great.
I mean, I can understand why the Guardian gives jobs to the kids of its own journalists. But why this enthusiasm for the children of clerical fascists?
