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RSSThe truth about Andrew Gilligan
The Telegraph man’s links to Iran.
By Mehdi Hasan Published 22 November 2010 13:20
As predictably as night follows day, Andrew Gilligan has responded on his Telegraph blog to my interview with the mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, last week. I suspected he wouldn't be able to resist.
For those of you who haven't followed Gilligan's illustrious career since his role in "outing" Dr David Kelly, it's worth being aware that, these days, the former BBC reporter is obsessed with "Islamists" and, in particular, Rahman. By my count, he has published about 15 blog posts on Rahman on the Telegraph website over the past month: that's a ratio of one post every two days.
Obsession, perhaps, is an understatement. The man who came to global prominence by helping to expose the British government's lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is now "cyber-stalking" a local politician in the East End of London. How the mighty fall.
I'll come on to Gilligan's own links in a moment, but first, let me quickly deal with his blog post about my interview. Gilligan mocks what he describes as my "fearless and probing interview" of Rahman. If he and his friends in the right-wing, Islam-obsessed, McCarthyite blogosphere bothered to read the magazine, they'd know that the weekly "NS Interview" isn't designed to be Paxman-esque. It's a Q&A format that caters for interviewees as diverse as Rahman and Osama Bin Laden's son, on the one hand, to Russell Brand and Sienna Miller, on the other.
And the truth is, as the transcript of the full interview with Rahman shows, I still managed to question the mayor on all the main allegations against him (from his religious beliefs to his alleged links to "extremism" to the smear campaign against his Labour opponent) and, for the first time, we hear the man himself respond to each and every claim. But I guess Gilligan and his friends don't want to hear the mayor put his side of the story, or defend gay rights, or publicly confirm his belief in secularism; they'd rather stick their fingers in their ears and chant, "La la la la, we can't hear him!" Why bother with debate or discussion, when caricatures and smears serve you better?
In fact, on the secularism point, Gilligan chooses to quote selectively from the interview (I guess nothing's changed since the Kelly affair), writing on his blog:
Sample extract:
Q: Do you believe in a secular Britain?
A: I do.
Phew! So that's all right, then!
Umm. That's not a "sample extract". This is:
Do you believe in a secular Britain?
I do. I live in a society based on a clear division of powers between the church and the state. Yes, I absolutely believe in a secular society.
But what else should we expect, I suppose, from a journalist who long ago became a propagandist for Boris Johnson and the Tories and has since been accused of "sockpuppeting", ie, creating, in the words of Wikipedia, "a false identity through which a member of an internet community speaks with or about himself or herself, pretending to be a different person". (See here, here and here for details.)
Gilligan says on his blog that I have "form on defending the IFE [Islamic Forum of Europe]" even though I clearly stated, in a debate with Gilligan on Sky News over the summer, that I didn't agree with the IFE agenda but that I'd rather trust the opinion of grass-roots groups such as London Citizens, which work with and support the IFE, than his own biased and selective "journalism". I also challenged Gilligan to define Islamism in a coherent or consistent manner, live on air, which he was (surprise, surprise) unable to do.
In fact, in a previous blog post, in March, Gilligan included me among the "allies of Islamism". I'm not sure how many allies of Islamism have criticised the concept of an "Islamic state", denounced suicide bombings in Palestine and questioned Islam's illiberal apostasy laws, but here's a question: if I'm an ally of Islamism, then what's Andrew Gilligan? Lest we forget, the man is a paid employee of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He hosts his own show on the state-funded English-language Iranian broadcaster, Press TV. (For the record, let me just point out here that, like Oliver Kamm, Iain Dale, Martin Bright and others, I have also occasionally appeared as a guest on Press TV – but not as a presenter! And, of course, I don't spend my whole life hunting for Islamists, as Gilligan seems to.)
Here he is, interviewing his old enemy Ken Livingstone on Press TV:
As even the Spectator's Rod Liddle, Gilligan's friend, supporter and former boss, wrote in July 2009:
So what's he doing – Gilligan – working for Press TV, the international propaganda channel run by the Iranian government?
Liddle continues:
"I'm not going to give you my reasons if you're just going to rip the piss out of them," he says on the phone from his holiday in the West Country.
"Well, how can I know if I'm going to rip the piss out of them before I've heard them, Andrew?"
He sighs a lot. I hope he is sighing because he knows he's done a bad thing rather than because he's been found out. He explains that at first he thought that Press TV was an agreeable symptom of social change and greater openness in Iran, though he adds, "I may have been wrong about that." He says he has not worked for Press TV since the election and that its post-election coverage has been "flawed" (no kidding, dude). He "might" not work for it ever again. And how much did they pay you, Andrew?
"Not that much."
How much, exactly?
"I'm not going to tell you that."
Why not?
"Because I don't want to. It's private."
Sources at Press TV tell me Gilligan is among the highest-paid, if not the highest-paid, employee at the channel. So, let's get this straight. Gilligan is a journalist who makes lots of money from "outing" as many British Muslims as he can as "Islamists" or "extremists", often on deeply dubious grounds, and with the aid of selective quotation, yet at the same time also makes lots and lots of money working for a foreign country that is explicitly, openly and proudly Islamist and based on the rule of the clerics and a version of sharia law.
In the aforementioned quote in the Spectator, by the way, from June 2009, Gilligan says he "might" not work for the channel ever again. But, of course, he didn't stop working for the channel. The above YouTube clip is from a Gilligan show broadcast on Press TV this year, in the run-up to the general election.
Isn't that ironic? The man who obsesses about Islamists under every British bed is himself a paid, high-profile employee of an an openly Islamist government: the mullahocracy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hilarious. And, of course, deeply hypocritical. (Unless, of course, Gilligan believes that the Tower Hamlets council under the leadership of Lutfur Rahman is more "extreme" or dangerous than the Iranian state. Judging by the volume of his blog posts on the subject, perhaps he does. But I, for one, haven't yet spotted anyone being stoned to death on the streets of east London.)
So, Andrew, I ask you: when will you quit your lucrative job at Iranian-owned Press TV? And, until you do so, how can any of us take seriously your repeated complaints about the advance of "Islamism" in Britain? Feel free to leave your answers (excuses?) in the comment thread below the line – either as yourself, or perhaps in sockpuppet form. Cheers.
UPDATE:
I want to make a correction to this post. Andrew Gilligan has been in touch to make clear that he quit as a Press TV employee in December 2009 and no longer works for the channel – apart from two one-off shows that he presented for them in the run-up to this year's general election.
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Mehdi Hasan is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and the co-author of Ed: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader. He was the New Statesman's senior editor (politics) from 2009-12.
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113 comments
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@ Gerry, you are an idiot. Where is your evidence? The point still remains! Show me where I prove the ugly Jillian. I bet you wouldn't do it! Do your home work before start shit man
It now transpires that it is Gilligan who is the Iranian state-sponsored extremist agent, not Mehdi Hasan nor Mayor Lutfur Rahman. It appears that Gilligan is embarrassed by the fact that he was working for Press TV only 6 months ago which opposed the Iranian election result and which denies the Holocaust and death of six million Jews. By working for the Iranian regime for its tv channel which calls for the 'wiping off of Israel from the world map' Gilligan has now lost all credibility. He was sacked by BBC for sexing up a lie, lied on his CV to work for Keith Vaz 20years ago, works for a paper whose former Jewish owner has scandalous past, lied about Lutfur links to extremism though the latter's idol Tony Benn was nothing of the sort and now lies about Mehdi but gets caught as he admits he done the one offs for the 'shillings'. His hypocritically dual approach to political Islamism is a good reason for The Telegraph to get rid of him and recruit someone who hasn't worked for a Holocaust denier like President Ahmedinejad or endorsed Iran's anti-semitic media channel, Press TV. The Telegraph should sack Gilligan immediately because he is causing religious tension between Muslims, Jews and Christian media audiences by sending mixed messages to different groups. Well done Mehdi for 'The Truth that Gilligan has to swallow because he worked for the extremist Press TV even just six months ago'!
For all of you non muslim people out there, i think I should bring it to your attention that the journalist who wrote this article is on youtube video talking to another muslim, referring to us a kafirr (sorry don't know correct spelling), and other derogatory terms which basically describe us non muslims as those which will be assimilated in due course. This editor sympathises with the hardline islamic view that it is every muslims duty to ensure the domination of Islam over the entire world by whatever means necessary. The Koran is testament to this.
Don't let him parade himself as anything other than what I have described, he is the enemy within.
You're welcome. Hope you make some friends oneday...
The thing is neither of these two journalists come out smelling of roses in this squalid cat-fight.
Gilligan's employment in PressTV was at best questionable and at worst immoral. Particularly due to the fact that he remained in employment during Iran's brutal crackdown of the Green Democracy movement following elections last year.
Mehdi Hasan's interview with Lutfur Rahman was a joke and deserves to be mocked. It was a series of pliant and superficial questions which provided a foil for Lutfur to spin his sophistry: "I absolutely believe in a secular society", he said. This was snake oil, because his known alliances with the IFE and the theocratic Jamaat-e-Islam suggest otherwise. I am sure Ken Livinsgtone was happy with that "interview", having backed Lutfur. This was a lovely propaganda piece in his favour.
Thanks Mehdi! Very interesting read.
Gilligan might not be working for Press TV now (as he likes to point out), but that is besides the issue. The fact that he once worked for Press TV and benefited from the Iranian payroll says quite enough - a man lured by money - and the obsession with Muslim must be some kind of hedonistic perversion he is feeding.
Medhi - please stop, it is getting embarrassing.
Why are you using this great magazine for your personal battles.
You don't actually criticize any of the content of Gilligan's investigations.
It makes you look bad when you smear in this way. If you had answers to his points then you would not revert to this.
Gilligan might not be working for Press TV now (as he likes to point out), but that is besides the issue.
So you won't mind me saying that you poo your pants twice a day? You know, because it was true once?
Abbas - agreed.
Gilligan's response to Mehdi's exposé of his links to extremist Iran is pathetic. He fails to justify why he worked for the anti-Israel PressTV. Why was Gilligan working for a tv channel that has bn complicit with the mullahstate in violating freedom of speech, human rights and suppressing democracy in last year's Iranian election. Gillian's reputation has expired just as much as the BBC had damaged his credibility. He can now face ideological apostacy charges in Tehran for bringing PressTV into a subject of criticism! Gilligan can now only expect a letter from Telegraph bosses asking him to depart due to his affiliation to anti-semitic Iran and Press TV.
Andrew Gilligan is nasty piece of work. Well done to Mehdi Hasan for exposing his idiocy.
Gilligan outed the dodgy dossier Blair and his fellow liars outed Dr Kelly.
A very good read and a sad decline I think of Mr Gilligan!
Paul Henry, Why don't you put your arguments against Mehdi in writing rather than posting Youtube links? The reality is whether you like him or not, Mehdi has successfully highlighted Andrew Gilligan's double standards. All his critics know that Mehdi isn't an Islamist, he is a political analyst. Whereas Gilligan has embarrassingly admitted working for Islamist Press TV even in May in return for 'shillings', Mehdi is exempt from any such allegations of sharing a paid, presenting platform like George Galloway on Iranian tv which always air propaganda against the West. It's easier to call Gilligan a hypocrite for being in the pocket of a nation under UN sanction than to call Mehdi an Islamist or satellite supporter of religious extremism. Gilligan will have to live with this embarrassment everyday as he is checking this blog for regular criticism of his own 'outing'!
Hans Castorp,
Apart from being mildly amused by Fighting4EdMiliband's childish rants. There is a tendency among desk bound warriors like him to blame the West and Isreal for all their woes.
The comforting thing is that sad losers like him will do no more than rant on sites like this!
Mehdi,
Could you respond to what Gilligan says on his reply to your post:
Did you make up that quote about his pay supposedly from your "sources" at Press TV?
Mehdi you say - I have also occasionally appeared as a guest on Press TV - but not as a presenter!.
What's the difference? The real hypocrite in all this is Ken Livingstone. The man who has campaigned for gay rights in the past PRESENTING a book programme called Epilogue on a channel funded and controlled by a regime that arrests, tortures and murders homosexuals. Forget Gilligan, Livingstone is the REAL hypocrite and has some explaining to do.
You guys are just jealous because Mehdi is doing well criticising your now disgraced friend Gilligan!
If that argument were applied then we should stop selling arms to the Saudis and stop all trade with them. AS Panaorama showed, the Saudis are funding Islamic Schools which teach intolerance and violence. This Govt policy of 'faith schools is nonsense and should stop. nd even the weekend complementary community schools shoul be heavily regulated
Headline - The Telegraph man's links to Iran.
How about 'An ex London mayor's links to Iran !
Come on people, disgraceful Livingstone could be running London in 2012. He needs outing as a first class hypocrite.
@swatantra nandanwar
23 November 2010 at 10:29
We would not deal with Indians or Pakistanis or indeed most of the world if we used ethics as our guide.
Well someone has got to rid us of islamism, or islam. It really is damaging a lot of people. Including those who call themselves muslim. So what are we going to do about it? (In a not violent way, of course.)
Livingstone's last appearance on Press TV presenting a programme called Epilogue was on the 11th of October 2010, MORE RECENT THAN GILLIGAN !
OR, more accurately: "The Telegraph man's link (singular!) to Iran"
That one link being he used to work on a state TV channel. Unless in part two Mehdi accuses Gilligan of running uranium to Tehran from Pyongyang or something.
Mehdi is sitting where he is because of what he is and all you critics are sitting where you are because of what you are...not. This may be hard to swallow but who cares? Tough luck!
infidel wins prick of the week
Mehdi's own critcism of the Iranian regime has been awfully weak. Here he is advocating unquestioning acceptance of Ayatollah Khamenei's word on Iran's record of stockpiling nuclear weapons. The logic being, if Ayatollah Khamenei says it's the truth, then it must be the truth. Right, Mehdi?
"Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a fatwa saying the stockpiling, the production, the use of nuclear weapons us forbidden under Islam. Spot on. Islamic Republic of Iran. The fatwa of the Supreme Leader"
Mehdi Hasan is a good reminder that this field is not simply split between goodies and baddies - he obviously falls somewhere inbetween. But no honest journalist, and an Oxford graduate at that, can possibly apply the term McCarthyite to the current situation - it suggests either dishonesty or a shockingly poor grasp of the history of the Western world over the last 3/4 of the century.
Taylor is right: this is the arguement of a 5 year old - desl with the content not with the surrounding factors.
And the knowledge that Galligan works for that T.V. show is not a new expose revelation so stop presenting it like it is.
And stop being such a hypocrite. Are you a child: you basically say: "I have been on the Iranian tv channel but Gilligan has been on more than me so he is worse than me".
My 5 and 6 year old argue with that logic
Fighting4EdMiliband,
What a sad piece of work you are, the more people like Hans Castorp and Abbas come across as reasonable human beings the more shrill you become!
I personally think that Gilligan and your super-hero should do the honourable thing and go and sit in the naughty corners and shut up
And to argue that the weekly interview happens the same every week is fine.... But the only 2 you have promoted recently on this website have been Warsi and Rahman.
So do not pretend you do not have biases and do not pretend you are innocent in your representation and placement of these "weekly questionnaires".
I was shocked to hear they are weekly because you have only shown Warsi and Rahman on the website.
What's the matter, Kaffar got your tongue ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhPeyxJ7vGU
This constant taking out of context, exaggeration and name-calling is rather tiresome!
How anyone can try to justify he is an Islamist is beyond me. Can anyone define what an Islamist is first? Then try and correlate that with Hasan's work.
It just won't work. Get over yourselves.
Fighting4EdMiliband,
You are of course right it's not empty it's full of nasty bile.
HanStuart, There's always people like you on NS who enjoy hanging about with leftwing company in the absence of your political maturity. It's a shame u guys find it hard to swallow Mehdi's facts about hypocrites like Gilligan. But that requires intelligence.
You can see for yourself here:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan
Lutfur Rahman is an Islamist and only believes in this.
Mehdi Hasan does not know this man and is only defending him as he is a fellow 'brother'.
This article is wrong on almost everything
LIVINGSTONE presented a programme called Epilogue yesterday (29th November 2010) on the Ahmadinejad Broadcasting channel (Press TV).
People of London, do you want this hypocrite to be your mayor in 2012? A 'Labour candidate' for London mayor who is working for a tv channel funded and controlled by a govt that is a serial abuser of human rights. Mehdi, forget Gilligan. LIVINGSTONE IS THE REAL VILLAIN !
By now all the top journalists in the UK will have known about this twisted, shilling-hungry and pathetically sacked, lying loser Andrew Gilligan who has worked for a Holocaust denying Jew hating state. The Telegraph will lose its credibility further if it keeps Gilligan on its payroll a day beyond 2010.
I don't like either of you as journalists:
Gilligan is obsesed with Islam
So are you - you are a political editor but 75% of your posts are about Islam. People say it is less but most of the non Islamic posts are simply comments on other articles in other newspapers. You have an agenda as does he.
And you do not really address the content of Gilligan's critcisms of Lutfur Rahman - you just have a go at his links and how many times he has made them.
You are both as pathetic as each other.
@De Rigueur
"Well someone has got to rid us of islamism, or islam. It really is damaging a lot of people. Including those who call themselves muslim. So what are we going to do about it? (In a not violent way, of course.)"
Anyone concerned about Islamism or the relevations of Panorama last night about the extremism taught at Islamic faith schools should write a letter to their MP demanding action:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
It may not achieve anything but it will increase the public pressure on them. They will have no wriggle room to pretend that "no one has ever raised it with them" or that "there is no real concern about this."
A good point. But the Saudis export their reactionary form of hardline Islamic philosophy. India is a secular country with many religions and on the whole there is a high degree of tolerance and living together. Its also a democracy and has been for 60 years. And an economic giant.
Islam is ok but not the ractionary fundamentalism, and Islamic institutions are in need of radical reform; blame the clerics, the imans.
But we should be adopting an ethical foreign policy even though it may cost us.
Unlike anti-semitism, Islamophobia is something that is widely accommodated in our western media because it creates an enemy out of nothing. Brainless people like Hans Castrated and Co. above would have obviously condemned the Press TV presenter to hell on earth had it been Mehdi instead of Gilligan. Most of us Englishmen aren't stupid enough to care what Mehdi's critics think. We're concerned more about ostracising pro-Iranian journalists like Andrew Gilligan who has demonstrated his cheap worthiness for what he himself describes a few 'shillings'. He can now hang himself in shame or at the least publicly apologise for taking money from terror sponsoring state's main tv channel when he could have earned the same money here in the UK. The Telegraph board are rumoured to have an emergency meeting soon to discuss whether to sack Gilligan this side of 2010 or next!
i think panorama on bbc 1 last night proves that andrew gilligan has been right to expose these islamo hate mongering fascists and racists and maybe medhi hassan should stop taking sideswipes at mr gilligan and start attacking his fellow extremist muslim brothers who frankly are just the heirs to the gestapo and hitlers nazis,go watch panoramas british schools islamic rules that was showed last night on bbc 1 and you would think hitler and the nazis was alive and well in the mosques and muslim schools in this country.i always suspected that hitler converted to islam after he met the grand mufti of jerusalem in the reichstag in 1939.
You sir, do Ed Miliband a grave disservice. I seriously hope he has nothing to do with you whatsoever, lest the party be in even worse shape than I thought.
Gilligan has long been reduced to a joke. He's also has the stunningly unprofessional habit of commenting on his own news articles in a comment piece in the Daily Telegraph.
And that's before we even get on to 'sockpuppeting' - http://torytroll.blogspot.com/search/label/socks
Panorama on BBC proves... What? Actually, it didnt anything!Bring the evidence here. Mehdi cites great points and support them with reason and proves. Hence where is yours? Apart from insulting him and Islam faith. Stuart - why don't attack bigoted and prejudiced groups like BNP and the EDL? Instead you support. Are you one of them. With respect use Capital letters where it needs e.g. names etc. Cheers
Good - Gilligan's hidden for too long behind the omerta that journalists don't go after other journalists (not that he's personally ever held to this, as Dave Hill can attest.
He's also got lengthy form for editing quotes selectively to change their meaning, and needs to be called out on this. I can speak personally, since he did it to me in the article he inadvertently revealed his sock-puppeting antics.
Also, a look through his wikipedia page edit history is interesting.
Sorry, could you remind us all of which one of Medhi's points actually addresses the content of Gilligan's accusations against Lutfar Rahman.
If this is such a brilliant defence this will be clear. If it is just an article as written as part of a pathetic mud slinging contest then it wont
This extracts from Haile Selassie's speech at the UN in 63. It's relevant today. "Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will; Until all... as they are in the eyes of Heaven; Until that ... if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil. "