Iranian media is reporting that Lord Nazir Ahmed, who recently resigned from the Labour Party over anti-Semitic comments, has blamed the “Zionist lobby” for the decision by international satellite providers to ban the broadcasts of several Iranian news outlets. According to a Times of Israel report:
Lord Nazir Ahmed
Just when we thought he’d shed his anti-Semitic ways, Lord Nazir Ahmed, the disgraced member of the British House of Lords and former member of the Labour Party, did it again.
Iranian Press TV reported Friday that Ahmed blamed the ‘Zionist lobby’ for the decision of international satellite providers to ban the broadcasts of several Iranian news outlets, including Press TV.
‘Freedom of speech, and freedom of expression and freedom of media should be universal and it’s very unfortunate that the Zionist lobby does not like Press TV and many of the other outlets of Iran and that’s why the pressure is so much that they need to be switched off,’ Ahmed was quoted as saying.
One of England’s first Muslim men to be appointed to the House of Lords, Lord Ahmed was suspended in March from his party after he allegedly placed the blame for his dangerous driving conviction on a Jewish conspiracy.
Soon after he was suspended, the Pakistani-born Ahmed ‘completely and unreservedly’ apologized to the Jewish community for his remarks. In an interview at the time with Huffington Post UK, Ahmed said that he had ‘the greatest respect’ for the Jewish community.
Ahmed resigned from his party in May, just days before a scheduled hearing over his anti-Semitic remarks. At the time, his attorney said that he did not believe that the Labour Party would have given his client a fair hearing.
On Christmas day in 2007, Ahmed was driving a car that hit and killed 28-year-old Martyn Gombar near Rotherdam, England. Lord Ahmed, who admitted sending and receiving text messages two minutes before the crash, was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail in 2009, but served 16 days.”
In May, we reported that Lord Ahmed had resigned from the Labour Party shortly before facing a hearing over alleged anti-Semitic comments made in connection with his drunken-driving arrest.
Lord Nazir Ahmed became the United Kingdom’s first Muslim life peer in 1998 and has a number of connections to the Global Muslim Brotherhood. For example, he has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists UK (AMSSUK), the U.K. branch of the American organization by the same name which is headquartered at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The AMSS was founded in 1972 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Student Association by important members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood including Jamal Barzinji, currently a leader of IIIT, and the late Ismail Faruqi, a pivotal figure in the “Islamization of Knowledge” project. AMSS has sponsored annual conferences and publishes a journal entitled American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS) in conjunction with IIIT which plays host to the AMSS.
Other indications of Lord Ahmed’s ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood include:
In February 2009, Lord Ahmed’s led a delegation of UK Muslim Brotherhood and pro-Palestinian groups that was expected to deliver a “letter of thanks” to the Turkish Embassy in London expressing gratitude over Turkish Prime MInister Erdogan’s remarks strongly criticizing Israeli actions in Gaza. The Jerusalem Post report indicates that Lord Ahmed was the leader of the delegation.
In April 2009, Lord Ahmed led a British Muslim Initiative (BMI) delegation to Sudan that also included representatives of other UK and US Muslim Brotherhood groups. The BMI is part of the UK Muslim Brotherhood.
In October 2011, US Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Conference Rashad Hussain, together with representatives of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, were invited to speak at a UK event hosted by Lord Nazir Ahmed.
In 2009, the Jerusalem Post reported on some of the Islamist connections and anti-Semitic activities of Lord Ahmed:
Previously, Ahmed used his influence to introduce the lord high chancellor to Sheikh Suhaib Hasan to discuss introducing Islamic divorce laws into the UK, the think tank said.
In a 2008 documentary, Hasan said, “Even though cutting off the hands and feet, or flogging the drunkard and fornicator, seem to be very abhorrent, once they are implemented, they become a deterrent for the whole society. This is why in Saudi Arabia, for example, where these measures are implemented, the crime rate is very, very, low.”
According to the British current affairs magazine Spectator, Ahmed recently threatened to mobilize 10,000 Muslims to prevent the House of Lords from screening Fitna, a short film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders that claims that Islam sanctions terrorism. He also threatened to take the organizer of the event to court.
He called the decision not to screen the film a victory for the Muslim community.
In 2005, Ahmed hosted a book launch in the House of Lords for a writer who frequently uses anti-Semitic stereotypes in his work.
Russian-born Israel Shamir claimed the blood libels against the Jews were in fact true and that all political parties were Zionist-infiltrated. Shamir is a citizen of Sweden, where his legal name is Adam Ermash. In an interview on Press TV, an Iranian satellite channel, during Operation Cast Lead, Ahmed said that Jewish student groups actively recruited for the IDF, and that British Jews who fight in the IDF should be arrested and, if necessary, charged with war crimes.
In June 2012, Lord Ahmed cancelled his plans to host far-right extremist groups at the House of Lords.
In July 2012 the Labour Party lifted the suspension of Lord Ahmed in connection with allegations that he had offered a bounty on the head of U.S. President Obama and former President George Bush. According a Pakistani media report Lord Ahmed had also claimed he U.S. was planning an attack on Iran to divert attention from the country’s financial situation and called on the Muslim world to “united against the attacking powers.”
