Sun-watch: Newspaper admits to smears and lies about Galloway.
George Galloway isn't an easy man to like at the best of times. He recently wrote an article for the Socialist Worker which he concludes with:
I glorify the Hizbollah national resistance movement, and I glorify the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
He therefore seemingly finds a militia which is indiscriminately firing missiles full of ball bearings into another country by the dozen worthy of praise. Supporting one set of murderers over another set of indiscriminate murderers is the politics of the sewer.
Nevertheless, Galloway is a supporter of press freedom, as shown by his exposing of the fake sheikh Mazher Mahmood and his refusal to back down to lawyers' attempts to gag blogs such as Obsolete which published his freely available photograph. On the other side was News International, publishers of the Sun and Times.
It was those newspapers, supporters of free speech and freedom of the press only when it means more profits for Mr Murdoch, that printed a tissue of lies linking Galloway to the extremist Muslim cleric Delwar Hossain Sayeedi. The reports alleged that Galloway was to share a platform with him at a rally in a London park, after Sayeedi had been invited to the UK by the London Muslim Centre. Not only was this completely untrue (Galloway was pictured at another rally on the day in question) but Sayeedi wasn't even in Britain, apparently back home in Bangladesh with no knowledge of the rantings that the Sun published. The Sun also went ahead with publishing despite being informed of the errors in the Times piece by Galloway's office.
The Sun's leader was as follows:
YET again Britain extends the hand of hospitality to a ranting Islamic madman who glorifies suicide attacks on us.
Bangladeshi cleric Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, who says we DESERVED the 7/7 atrocity, has been allowed to enter the country for a rally alongside vile George Galloway.
The Foreign Office’s “Islamic Issues” adviser Mockbul Ali insisted he should be heard.
Tony Blair said after 7/7 that “the rules of the game have changed”. Harsher measures were needed.
So we now have new laws against glorifying terrorism.
But why allow Sayeedi this golden opportunity to break them?
Why not just ban from our soil anyone with a track record of backing terror?
And here's today's apology, which is hidden from view, seeing as it isn't featured on the Sun's big news page:
CONTRARY to our reports (Ban this beast and Kill Brits’ Hate Cleric let into UK, July 15), we would like to make clear the Respect MP George Galloway was not scheduled to attend a rally or any other event alongside Islamist cleric Delwar Hossain Sayeedi.
We did not contact Mr Galloway before publication of this report.
We are happy to correct the record and apologise to Mr Galloway for the error.
In other words, the Sun is written by a bunch of lying and smearing fantasists who can't even make a story up properly. Another triumph for Rebekah Wade!
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