More hypocrisy from HnH as pictures of Anjem Choudhary drinking and smoking resurface

As if further evidence were needed of Hope not Hate's desperation to target UKIP while ignoring other organisations which actually pose a risk to race relations in the UK, it is worth noting the attitudes displayed to one which it lists as one of its targets - Al Muhajiroun.


Headed by Anjem Choudhary, the group numbers among its former members the two Woolwich killers - one of whom was described by Choudhary as a 'nice guy' - and is responsible in large part for the perversion of Islam into a hate-filed vehicle of repression, at least in the UK.

Over the last few days, pictures of Choudhary during his days as a student at Southampton University have been published in much of the media showing him smoking, drinking beer and posing with a copy of 'Mayfair' magazine: all things he now rails against since he became a 'strict Muslim'. This is akin to having photographs of Nick Griffin attending a synagogue in a skull cap in his youth, or Tommy Robinson with his Islamic girlfriend in her burq'qa.

You hardly need to imagine the gloating articles that Hope not Hate would publish on their website, touting the hypocrisy of Griffin or Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon. I wouldn't much care, as I have no time for either of them. And yet after this photographic scoop of Choudhary - whose organisation is officially a Hope not Hate target - what do we find? Not a single word. Not a single photograph. Not a single comment.

What I can't understand is how Hope not Hate justify such negligence. Their methods in the past have always included ridiculing the leaders of organisations which peddle hate, and they have frequently made use of photographs and quotes which the leaders of such organisations have made in the past. So why the kid gloves with Anjem Choudhary? Why - despite having a whole page describing why Choudhary and his organisation is a hate group - have they not followed the precedent they have set in mocking the hypocrisy which is clear from the photographs?

Admittedly, these photographs are not new: they first surfaced back in 2009 in an article in the Daily Mail, but they have re-surfaced, and featured heavily in The Sun a couple of days ago. Needless to say, after the recent prominence of Choudhary and his group, they are more than topical, and yet HnH has instead focussed on a trip to Damascus by Griffin, and attacking the BBC for allowing Robinson on the 'Today' programme on BBC R4. Naturally, it has also continued its campaign against UKIP, as featured on this blog yesterday.

The question we must ask Nick Lowles and his fellow travellers at Hope not Hate is simple: why? If you are genuinely against hate - and are serious about including Al Muhajiroun amongst the hate organisations you oppose - then why the silence which seems nothing but rank hypocrisy?