This may have something to do with his views on Isreal which is a difficult pill to swallow for its powerfull freinds.

Unfortunately, having read through the whole discussion – and having studied Islam at university (in order to make sense of it all!), I was truly disappointed to see you deliberately misread and twisted the discussion to come to the conclusion you say.

The discussion was never revolving around ‘condemning or condoning’, but about the wroding used by Melanie Philips to connect the terrorists to ‘Islamists’ (a term – from my sturdy – that is highly controversial if not completely biased). Your argument was “whats wrong with that connection”, his argument was that it was inaccurate!

What’s going on Sid? when you see someone like yourself go on what can only be a ’smear-campaign’ (because even though you claim to be different to ‘islamists’, you still have your own personal differences I’m sure – just had a look at your comments on that link about some issue from the 70s! Hardly good grounds for a fair account of Ali!), how can we trust your posts?

If you had an agenda, it would have been far more polite (to the readers) to say so before you expect non-muslims (which you appear to assume are ‘uneducated’ about Islam and Muslims) to fall for your smear campaigning.

You have a clear political and religious opinion – and thats your right – but the problem is you are trying to pass your version off as the ‘moderate and acceptable one and actively attacking the others, and all the while – because it falls within our government’s ‘political’ aims – the government is scooping up your type into its arms.

from having read his article, i think he wasn’t directly suggesting british soldiers be killed. but as i said, that’s not particularly relevant for me. he was foolish to leave himself open in that way – and as a civil servant – and his position in general – would have been well aware of it.

Fair comment. I was probably arguing with myself, and on balance, I ended up agreeing with the terrible trio. (They know who they are!)

Which is to say that he has a case to answer.

You are quite right in querying the basis of his arguement. My point here and on t’other thread is that it is no-where near clear cut that that particular post of his – which some people have analysed, ad absurdum – is as damning as has been suggested.

I am not really very happy about people trolling the internet, placing an interpretation on words used perhaps hastily, and then using that as a weapon against someones livelyhood. Which is the risk that the guy now faces.

Wonder if we’ll ever hear an outcome?

Its also interesting that several new handles appeared alomost simultaneously & largely on the two Azad Ali posts..

heh, you and the rest of us

douglas,

“It does seem pretty obvious that a Civil Servant who is at complete odds with a policy in the area s(h)e works in has got a major issue. Though you do have to remember that the vast majority of civil servants have no input into policy whatsoever.”

yeah but a system of governance is a bit more than just one piece of policy.

anyway its not about restricting the man’s freedom of speech or even dismissing him – i’d like to hear more from him – explaining his views – before we make those decisions, whether he is fit for his job or not.

based on what i’ve read, my issues – and questions for him- would be very simple. he talks about oppression, so yeah fine. but what about the people who were oppressed by the expansion of the caliphate, on its way to becoming a major empire? He wants to criticise ‘Empire’ – well what about OUR glorious history of empire. “we” might be oppressed now, but what about the days when we were the oppressors? what does he say about those oppressed peoples? Or is it okay because that was done to “please Allah”? It’s the usual – do it to me, its oppression. If i’m doing it, its not. its glorious religion. I can’t tell how much of that thinking he might subscribe to, and it seems to me very important.

Thanks for replying.

Shamit, I think your statement on the legal situation of a Civil Servant is completely accurate. That is certainly my recollection of how it worked.

Ravi, yeah, I think I am being a bit idealistic. I suppose it depends how high you place free speech up the ladder. It does seem pretty obvious that a Civil Servant who is at complete odds with a policy in the area s(h)e works in has got a major issue. Though you do have to remember that the vast majority of civil servants have no input into policy whatsoever.

If you take Shamits’ example of the Indian Ambassador, it might be OK to allow them to have a bee in their bonnet about, say foxhunting in the UK, I’d have thought that could be tolerated. The problem would be that managing it would become byzantine in it’s complexity.

So, I suppose, on balance, the present system works.

Sid, my question was not about applying the rules, it was about whether they are the right rules to apply.

I end up fairly well persuaded by the three of you.

Why should it be allowable for anyone’s employment contract to inhibit their free speech?

I feel that deep down you are right, Douglas. However, employees may sign a form of conduct, that could include not belonging to racist parties, or sign non-disclosure forms where they are supposed not to divulge or comment about a company’s IP. etc In that case, you are knowingly abdicating your rights as a regular citizen.

My question is whether defending the ‘caliphate’ somehow violates being a civil servant. Shamit, very kindly answers that.

The “civil servant” is by law not permitted to publicly view his opinions on any Government policy. Also, a civil servant is expected to believe in our secular democratic system of Governance.

So, there is a breach of trust when he coherently talks about how him and others are working hard in their own ways to bring back a Caiphate.

As I am not a Muslim or an Islamist, I have no idea
what he means by Caliphate. Is he talking about bringing the sort of government found in classical and medieval Islamic history in Britain? He would have to be an utter fool to believe that in a multicultural and diverse Britain he could ever bring about such form of government. Or is he talking about something more abstract? And how he wants to bring this change?

Rather than taking things literally, I would prefer to have him explain in terms I can understand before making judgement.

If you replace the words civil servant with citizen then I would agree with both of you.

The “civil servant” is by law not permitted to publicly view his opinions on any Government policy. Also, a civil servant is expected to believe in our secular democratic system of Governance.

In our own system, while the Anglican Church is the official religion we are by law a secular democracy — where a citizen can be assured of not having some religious edicts defining common law.

So, there is a breach of trust when he coherently talks about how him and others are working hard in their own ways to bring back a Caiphate.

These laws also protect civil servants from political changes and they can equally without favour or fear give their impartial advice to their political masters. For our system of Governance to work, politicians and civil servants should have mutual trust so that there could be frank and honest discussions among two groups while identifying implications or specific implementation of any policy choice the politicans make.

Imagine, if the ambassador to India now decided to contradict the Foreign Secretary when Mr. Miliband made some serious gaffes during his recent visit there. Niether do you want foreign politicians getting wind that the British civil service disagrees with actual Government policy.

So, if someone describes himself as a civil servant in a blog which is public and openly argues for policies and approaches which the Government of the day which we are all aware that he had done — then he vioated the basic cardinal principles of being a civil servant.

If he wants to articulate his political views which are very religion oriented — then he should quit his job with the State and do so.

Otherwise he is tarnishing not only himself but other civil servants and dare I say not doing much favour to the Muslim community either.

When British forces are stationed in a foreign country based on an agreement with the host Government which has been democratically elected;- and a civil servant finds some right in some jihadi arguing for the killing of those soldiers — I call it treason and I would argue for him to be sacked and may be prosecuted.

Human Rights laws of Europe enable a government officer to refuse to obey an illegal order but not break the basic trust.

Is that explanation accurate?

I do have a problem when a British civil servant talks about his hard work in bringing back the caliphate and then people going around and defending him

That should be covered by freedom of speech… no?

I’d take that up with Gus O’Donnell, Head of the Civil Service and patron of Azad Ali’s Civil Service Islamic Society. He suspended Azad Ali.

Can I ask you one thing?

Why should it be allowable for anyone’s employment contract to inhibit their free speech? This, I’d have thought, should be prohibited by the very government that is supposed to serve us. They do not own us, after all. Whether Azad Ali is right or not seems to me to be a bit beside the point. He ought to be allowed to express himself. He is not ‘owned’ by the government, is he?

It would be a form of slavery if he was.

You, Azad Ali, and I spend 168 hours every week on this planet. What we think, or do, outwith the 40 hours that we are employed should not matter.

Anyway, that’s what I think.

Further, as a civil servant going directly against the views of the Government of the day is something that is unacceptable.

I am sure that there are better ways to phrase this, specially in the context of a Democracy.

In a scenario such as this where the democratically elected Government of Iraq has an agreement with the United States and others on how long they think foreign troops should be there — where is the combat coming into play? So, the combatants that Mr. Ali refers to are those who do not support the wishes of Iraqi Government and thereby people and who wish to go and kill foreign soldiers who are now in Iraq following request from the Iraqi Government?

That’s a pretty good argument, Shamit.

Saying its a Muslim’s duty to fight occupying forces is just trying to use religion to support illegal activities and in the process causing for more Muslims to be killed. That is called being a religious fanatic.

I disagree. Most people would agree with Azad Ali on his general premise that if people are oppressed by an occupying force, then there should be an equal force to repel it in order to achieve balance. Most people would also agree with Azad Ali that there should be rules of engagement, in order to distinguish between genuine resistence and acts of violence and murder.

However, the vast majority of Iraqis did go and vote for the current Iraqi government and the US/British troops are guests who are securing peace, so in that sense I agree with you that Azad Ali showed rather poor judgement in bringing up that quote, and make him open to accusations that he is condoning violence.

I do have a problem when a British civil servant talks about his hard work in bringing back the caliphate and then people going around and defending him

That should be covered by freedom of speech… no?

I wouldn’t worry too much. When these many defenders of Azad Ali have to resort calling me a “Muslim hater”, “racist bigot”, “uncle tom”, then you know they’ve completely run out of ideas. Not that their defence of Azad Ali’s reprehensible comments have been convincingly good, in any case.

It’s a hell of an intelligent pea, so it is!

I’d have doubted that you would face much wrath. Mostly, folk on here look out for each other and it is self monitoring. You have to either be a complete idiot or get so worked up about something that you forget who your friends are, to even get that big bad boy Leon on your back

I know. I’ve been there.

I am tired of idiots coming here and accusing our regulars and members of the editorial team of being racists and bigots and none of them are.

So, even though I might face the wrath of Sunny and the rest of the editorial team including Sid, I am going to start defending people aggressively.

These idiots calling Sid a bigot or suggesting Katy has a pea sized brain is just getting to me especially when they refuse to understand and accept the basis of a secular society.