Hate preacher Haitham Haddad has published a response to the Panorama broadcast which rightly identified him as an extremist.
Those overseas can see the Panorama report on Youtube. I highly recommend it.
The response is the usual Haddad mix of slander, obfuscation, and distortion.
One paragraph in particular stood out for me:
The programme claimed that I declined an interview. This is false. We were in conversations with Panorama but I suspect the programme makers wanted to cynically capitalise on the events in Paris and they released the programme sooner than scheduled before we could agree a suitable time and terms.
Assessing and reporting on extremists as a mainstream journalist is a fraught business at any time, let alone crazy days such as ours. Everything must be checked carefully and people who are covered must be given a chance to respond. This is about impact and credibility, not bending over backwards to accommodate nasty people.
So I made some enquiries and have learned from the producers what actually happened.
The producers tried repeatedly to arrange an interview over the course of ten weeks.
When a time, place and date for an interview were finally arranged, Haddad simply didn’t show up. He didn’t even let the producers know he had changed his mind or could not come. This happened on 3 December, nearly six weeks before the broadcast.
The producers persisted. They tried to reschedule by e-mail and telephone, but there was no agreement. The idea of a replacement interviewee was also aired. None was offered.
Finally, when it seemed very clear an interview would not happen, the producers wrote a letter on 23 December offering to accept a written response to questions by 5 January.
The letter noted that they had made “numerous attempts, over many weeks, to organise a recorded face-to-face interview for inclusion in a forthcoming BBC Panorama”.
It also included the hateful statements by Haddad which were subsequently broadcast.
There was no response to this letter.
It is also worth noting that in the course of the correspondence Haddad insisted that he be allowed to write an introduction to himself. He evidently does not understand how a free press works.
What all this shows, I think, is that Mr Haddad is getting scared. He knows that more and more people are learning that he is a hate preacher. He knows so many of us are fed up.
He will carry on within his circles, of course, but it is satisfying to see him run for cover for once and good to set this bit of the record straight, for it too counts against him.
Mr Haddad is naturally free to release his group’s correspondence with the BBC for the famous “context”. If he does, as ever, people will see that no “context” rescues him from the outer darkness where he belongs.
