 | This article is an autobiography or has been extensively edited by the subject or by someone connected to the subject.(July 2015) |
Asghar Bukhari is a British Muslim campaigner and political commentator. He is known for being a founding member and spokesperson of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK). [1]
Bukhari has stated that he believes it is his duty as a Muslim to engage in the community through political activism. [2] During his tenure as MPACUK's most prominent public representative, Bukhari and the organisation have run into controversy over accusations of antisemitism. [3] Citing frustration at the lack of Muslim activism and support in the UK, he left MPACUK in September 2015. [4]
In 2006, it was reported that Bukhari had sent the English Holocaust denier David Irving a £60 cheque and a letter headed with a quote attributed to John Locke, "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good people to stand idle". [5] In one email Bukhari wrote to Irving: "You may feel like you are on your own but rest assured many people are with you in your fight for the Truth!". He told The Observer: "At the time [in 2000] I was of the belief he [Irving] was anti-Zionist, being smeared for nothing more then[ sic ] being anti-Zionist" and that the "pro-Israeli lobby often accuse[s] people of anti-Semitism". [5]
Bukhari then published an audiocast in which he stated: "David Irving claimed he was not anti-Semitic and was in fact being attacked by the powerful pro-Israeli lobby; in short, being smeared ... I believed him, it's as simple as that ... I would not have supported anyone who is anti-Semitic". [6] "Everyone knew about Irving’s Holocaust denying but Mr Bukhari somehow managed to miss it", wrote David Aaronovitch in The Times shortly after the article in The Observer was published. [7]
During the 2008 Gaza War, Bukhari wrote in a Facebook thread: "Muslims who fight against the occupation of their lands are 'Mujahadeen' and are blessed by Allah. And any Muslim who fights and dies against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise". He also wrote that "The concept of jihad is a beautiful thing, and logical to those with a sincere heart". [8] The Centre for Social Cohesion reported Bukhari to the police for contravening the new law banning the "glorification of terrorism". [8] [9]
Shortly after two Nigerian Islamists murdered a serving British soldier, Lee Rigby, in a Woolwich street in 2013 as he was walking back to the Royal Artillery Barracks, Bukhari was justifying the attack on a BBC News channel. [10] Aisha Patel of the New York Daily Sun criticized the BBC for inviting Bukhari to give his opinion and said "Asghar Bukhari is not representative of Muslims. He is a representative of political Islam which has no place in British politics in the hothead, extremist form personified by Bukhari". [10]
On 8 January 2015, in a live Sky News broadcast the day after 12 people were murdered in the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo , Bukhari repeatedly said the murdered cartoonists of the publication were racists. [11] [12]
In June 2015, Bukhari posted on Facebook saying that "Zionists" had tried to intimidate him by entering his home and stealing one shoe. [13] He went on to say that it is possible that these tactics are used by various organisations for intimidation purposes. [14] The hashtag "Mossad Stole My Shoe" was trending on Twitter. [1] [15]
Bukhari's post to Facebook on 12 June 2015:
On 19 June 2015, Bukhari posted a 10-minute YouTube video in which he says his shoe/slipper was found by his neighbors in their garden, but the people who are "poo-pooing" his theory that the Zionists are behind the shoe going missing are wrong because it was the Zionists. [17]
Various memes cropped up mocking Bukhari's allegations, but his shoe also became the subject of a Twitter account and a jokey Change.org petition demanding its return which was signed by several hundred people. [1] Israel's ambassador to South Africa, Arthur Lenk, tweeted: "We have your shoe, @AsgharBukhari. Call me." [1] Maajid Nawaz, a former radical Islamist turned liberal activist and chairman of the anti-extremist Quilliam think-tank said in an interview with the BBC that there is an unhealthy anti-Semitic strand to Bukhari's thinking. [1] People who disagree with Bukhari or criticise him such as making fun of his shoe loss theory are described as "pro-Zionist stooges, or neoconservatives, or Uncle Toms." [1]