Another day, another need for a “correction” from the Guardian.
This time, it involves the newspaper’s favourite racist, Raed Salah:
The Guardian has removed a comment posted in Raed Salah’s name in a comment thread on their Comment Is Free website at CST’s request, which included a false and damaging allegation against CST.
Raed Salah wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian last Thursday, in which he did not mention CST. However, in the comment thread under the article, a comment was posted in his name which suggested CST had provided the Home Secretary with a “doctored” version of a poem he had written, “to make it appear anti-Jewish”. This allegation is untrue. Several other comments, by other people, making similar allegations against CST were also removed from the comment thread at CST’s request.
This particular allegation relates to a version of a poem written by Salah which was quoted by the Home Office in the Deportation Order (pdf) which was served on Salah in June 2011. According to the recent Immigration Tribunal ruling on Salah’s appeal, which overturned his deportation, the Home Secretary was “misled” as to the terms of this poem. However, despite the impression that some of Salah’s supporters have given, the ruling does not blame CST for this: it states that “It is not clear where this originally came from…She must have been provided with a version from elsewhere but we do not know where.” (para. 47)
As we have said previously, CST did not provide the version of the poem which was used in the June 2011 Deportation Order, which came from an article in theJerusalem Post dated 20 June 2009. In fact, it was CST that provided the full, accurate version of the poem in July 2011.
Of course, it is great to see the Guardian removing lies from its pages. It is even better to see that the Guardian has accepted that the revolting bigot behind whom they’ve thrown their full moral weight is a liar.
But these corrections won’t change the fundamental, institutionalised and cultural problem at the Guardian:
The false notion that CST provided inaccurate or doctored information to the Home Office regarding Raed Salah appears to have been encouraged by articles such as this one, by David Hearst of the Guardian, which accuses CST of providing a “dodgy dossier” and suggests that CST did not “get its facts right”. On the contrary, it is those who peddle this false allegation against CST who have got their facts wrong.
However, you’ll never see the Guardian admitting that this is the source of the problem.
