Ex-Muslims Ireland (EMI) was established last year and at first I was happy seeing an ex-Muslim group in Ireland as I am a huge supporter of ex-Muslims. But my optimism was quickly diminished as they issued a statement which was dismissive of the basic rights of an Irish citizen: Ibrahim Halawa. Ibrahim was imprisoned at the age of 17 in Egypt. In the statement EMI suggested we dwell on Ibrahim’s father’s controversial views before we lend our support against the human rights’ abuses Ibrahim was and is suffering. The idea we should consider the sins of the father before fighting against the detention without trial of a minor is odious. And many people rightly objected to this. Unfortunately, the concept of applying human rights equally to all regardless of their opinions or the opinions of their father (no matter how sinister) was dismissed as the simply the concerns of “regressive leftists”.
Upon further investigation it was found EMI recommended a blog hosted by Kareem Muhssin called Reflections of a Young Contrarian. This blog contained many questionable posts. One of which was titled A Defence of General Antagonism Towards Travellers. That’s right, this individual wrote a piece defending the idea it’s permissible to display antagonism towards a people group. After it was highlighted, EMI issued an apology saying the person was merely a member and they have been asked to leave. I thought that was the end of it.
However, EMI re-established in April 2017 as Alliance of Former Muslims (Ireland), (AFM). AFM have a section titled Previous History where the above occurrences are detailed, but without accurate detail. At the time AFM were happy to apologise and remove the person from the group. Now they describe those who highlighted the problems as “SJWs” who “made it their mission” to discredit them. They also claimed we doxxed the person despite the fact it was them who had link to this person’s personal info on their site.
At the bottom of the page there is also this facile claim.
Apparently, due to my insistence in human rights for all and the criticism of a post AFM apologised for, this makes me a flagrant offender of ex-Muslims. Of course no evidence of this flagrancy is found because there simply is none.
Aside from that invention, AFM have shown themselves to be liars. When issuing the apology AFM said that the person who wrote the offending material was simply a member, but now they admit he was actually a founder.
One of these links was to an article on the Islamist threat in Ireland, written by Kareem Muhssin – one of the founders of our group
This isn’t the kind of error made in a panic, it’s a calculated lie designed to distance oneself.
It also appears AFM and Kareem are involved with one another again. As you can see in the facebook message above, Kareem’s name is there. It also says Kareem was asked to “leave for a while”, suggesting it was temporary. And in a blog post written by Kareem in February of this year, he refers to himself and AFM as “us”, suggesting he is once again involved.
In the apology issued both by Kareem and AFM they referred to the blog post about Travellers. Nothing was mentioned of the numerous other posts that had highly unethical content. But since AFM and Kareem seem to be working together again and making ridiculous claims I think the other posts should be highlighted.
This posts which suggests women are at fault if men leer at them. It’s this rational that men can’t control themselves that leads to things like the Burka.
This post showing absolute disdain for Roma gypsies.
I don’t think the follwoing even needs comment.
And Kareem is also anti marriage equality for LGBT people. There is more but the point is well made. Kareem has unethical views and highlighting these does not make one anti ex-Muslim.
So to pretend the criticism is about one blog post that was only raised to discredit AFM is, quite frankly, dishonest bullshit. There were numerous posts containing highly unethical content, which AFM’s critics dropped as soon as an apology was issued. But since AFM have decided to take an ahistorical standpoint on events I feel the truth needs to come out.
I am a very principled person and those principles do not bend regardless of your race, religion, creed, sex, gender, sexual orientation etc. I support ex-Muslims, but I will not support them if they espouse ethnic hatred, rape apologism, and sexism such as that contained in the blog posts above.
Nor will I accept the idea we should ignore violations of human rights based on the opinions of a person’s father. Nor will I accept blatant lies that somebody is merely member when they are actually a founder, or that a person was doxxed even though their personal info was linked to on AFM’s site.
I ask AFM to withdraw their claim that me and @sbprme are “flagrant offenders in undermining the rights of ex-Muslims”. Or at least have the decency to provide the evidence behind such a claim so people can judge for themselves (and probably laugh at your “evidence”). I also ask that they clarify on Kareem’s role in AFM, both past and current. And if he is currently involved then I ask if he still holds the above beliefs.
