The dismissal of Dilpazier Aslam, the Hizb’ut Tahrir journalist, who was sacked by the Guardian after Scott Burgess’ investigation uncovered his advocacy of extreme racist views on the website Khilafah.com, has been covered in yesterday’s Times online, and the New Statesman.
It appears that the story will shortly be reported in a forthcoming article in the French equivalent of the Guardian, Liberation.
Meanwhile, the issue is being discussed by union members at the Guardian. They should consider how their newspaper came to be used as the mouthpiece for an extreme theocratic, racist and totalitarian political party. The possibilities which should be addressed, specifically, are as follows:
1. Did the Guardian editor or editors who commissioned the various Aslam pieces know that Aslam was a member of Hizb’ut Tahrir?
2. If so, did those editors appreciate the nature of Hizb?
3. If they knew the nature of Hizb, why did they continue to commission him to write articles on issues which are central to the Hizb political programme, without requiring the disclosure to their readership of Aslam’s membership of an extreme political party?
