I do love a bit of good news I do. Some particularly good news arrived recently that the sometimes mendacious Islamic grievance mongers of Tell Mama are to shut up shop due to a curtailment of government funds. Now I’m no great fan of this current government but if they’ve made the decision to cut public money from this pernicious and anti-freedom of speech organisation then even I will say that they’ve done the correct thing.
I have a long standing animus about this organisation which goes right back to their behaviour following the Jihad murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby back in 2013 when Tell Mama claimed that the murder had unleashed a flood of ‘Islamophobic’ attacks. When journalists and bloggers subsequently investigated these claims by Tell Mama it turned out that the number of actual physical attacks aimed at Muslims following the Jihad murder of Fusilier Rigby was tiny and what Tell Mama had claimed were ‘attacks’ was merely adverse and sometimes very accurate comment about the ideology of Islam online.
The bullshit claims from Tell Mama continued over the years and they have been caught out highlighting cases of ‘Islamophobia’ such as ‘hijab pulling’ by non-Muslims that were completely false. In one case a Muslim fake hate crime claimant who had claimed that she had had her hijab pulled off and which Tell Mama had gone big on, ended up being prosecuted by the police for making a false crime report.
Tell Mama have also in the past used a news feed from the US extremism linked Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) an organisation that the US government listed as an ‘un-indicted co-conspirator’ in a terrorist funding case. Tell Mama kept the newsfeed from CAIR up on their website long after people started to raise concerns about CAIR. Tell Mama eventually dropped the public association with CAIR but not after lots of public criticism.
Tell Mama were also clearly no friends of free speech. There are numerous allegations out there claiming that Tell Mama had a hand in excluding from the UK voluble critics of Islam. There are also claims that Tell Mama’s reports and complaints have resulted in Islam critics in the UK being prosecuted or removed from social media, especially from Twitter under its former less free speech favourable management.
Here’s what Lizzie Dearden of the Guardian said on the 8th March about the potential closure of Tell Mama.
The government is cutting all funding for the Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama, leaving it facing closure weeks after it revealed a record number of anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain.
Since its foundation in 2012, Tell Mama has been wholly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to run its reporting service, which received almost 11,000 reports in 2023-4, and support victims of Islamophobia.
Now it has informed Tell Mama that no grant will be provided from the end of this month, and has not given details of any alternative provision.
Police sources raised alarm over the probable impact of the cut, saying information provided by Tell Mama under a data sharing agreement signed in 2015 has been “invaluable” for monitoring indicators of rising tensions and responding to potential threats.*
Personally having watched for years how Tell Mama have inveigled themselves into various police forces in order to push their viewpoint I think it’s a good thing that there will be less ‘data sharing’ with police forces from Tell Mama. This is because I suspect that much of the data that Tell Mama shares with police is either partially or completely garbage.
The Guardian said that Tell Mama’s funding will cease at the end of this financial year. I hope that this is really the case and it’s not a false dawn where stories of this odious organisation having its funding cut have turned out to be less than truthful. Tell Mama has been in receipt of millions of pounds of taxpayer funds and they’ve too often used those funds to whine about adverse comment about Islam and silence those who do not have any problem with decent individual Muslims but who have valid criticisms of the ideology of Islam itself.
Watching this organisation, one which has played a part in prosecuting friends for ‘Islamophobia’ and whose staff have attempted to prosecute me for similar bullshit claims and who have helped to make the speech of Britons that little less free, go down the pan gives me a warm feeling inside. All those hundreds of people who have voiced concerns about Tell Mama and their actions should allow themselves a brief moment of celebration that this troublesome entity will in future starved of the public funds that have kept them going for so long.
I pray that it is finally goodbye and good riddance to Tell Mama. If that is the case then surely this is a very good example of how revenge is a dish best eaten cold. I’ve wanted for years to see this pernicious organisation die and at last it looks as if I might get my wish.