U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has topped the list of nominees for the 2016 “Islamophobe of the Year Award,” ran by the Hezbollah-sympathising, British-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). Breitbart London’s Raheem Kassam won the UK award in 2014.
Alongside Mr. Trump in the international category is Dr. Ben Carson, one of his competitors in the race for the Republican nomination. Below them is Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, comedian Bill Maher, and news tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
“Join us for an evening of comedy mayhem as we recognise the worst Islamophobes from around the world,” touts this year’s press release.
French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is also nominated “for their callous, racist cartoon of the drowned Syrian baby refugee Aylan Kurdi.” They won the same category last year — just months after twelve of their staff were murdered by Islamists for criticising Islam.
The IHRC is a Shia-dominated sectarian group, described as a “Khomeinist,” which continues to organise the annual Al-Quds Day demonstration in London, which was set up by the Iranian supreme leader.
They have demonstrated a degree of support for the Hezbollah terror group and campaigned on behalf of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the World Trade Center bombings of 1993.
Their stated mission, however, is to “work with different organisations from Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds, to campaign for justice for all peoples regardless of their racial, confessional or political background.”
The voting section on the website alludes to some of the nominees supposed crimes. Apparently for Mr. Trump, there are “too many reasons to list,” while Dr. Ben Carson is singled out for saying, “I would have problems with somebody who embraced all the doctrines associated with Islam.”
“Good ol’ Bill is a regular on these lists these days. Last year he said ‘If you are in this religion, you probably do have values that are at odds [with American ones]’ (because ‘American values’ are so great right?),” reads Mr. Maher’s section.
The European nominations are utterly predictable this year. They include French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen and Dutch anti-Islamisation Member of Parliament Geert Wilders.
An entire country is also nominated, Tajikistan, where police have apparently “shaved nearly 13,000 people’s beards and closed more than 160 shops selling traditional Muslim clothing last year,” as well as the town of Karamay in China “for banning people with large beards or those wearing hijabs, niqabs, burqas from taking local buses.”
Mr. Trump’s nomination comes just days after the British Parliament hosted a “debate” on banning the U.S. presidential contender from the country, ostensibly in response to his comments about a moratorium on Muslim immigration.
In the British category is reality TV star and Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins, described as “Donald Trump’s BFF across the pond,” Prime Minister David Cameron and the Home Secretary Theresa May, both cited for their attempts to tackle Islamist extremism, and the UK Independence Party’s Member of the European Parliament David Coburn, who has described himself as a “great big screaming poof.”
Two liberal Muslims also feature, simply because of their work against Islamist radicalism and support for government counter extremism laws: Government extremism adviser Maajid Nawaz, and Sara Khan of the women’s anti extremism think tank Inspire.
The IHRC also lists London’s Metropolitan Police, commenting: “Remember that time the police questioned a 10-year old boy over a spelling error?”
The boy in question, however, was in fact questioned in Lancashire police, hundreds of miles from London. The force later revealed that the case had been grossly misrepresented by the media. The boy was never question on suspicion of terrorism because of a spelling mistake, but because of broader concerns for his wellbeing.
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