Saturday, July 23, 2005
SASS QUASHED
Dilpazier Aslam, the sassy junior Guardianista exposed by Scott Burgess, has been fired:
On Monday July 18 Aslam was advised that the Guardian considered that Hizb ut-Tahrir had promoted violence and anti-semitic material on its website and that membership of the organisation was not compatible with being a Guardian trainee.
The following day Aslam told the editor, Alan Rusbridger, that he was not willing to leave Hizb ut-Tahrir and that, while he personally repudiated anti-semitism, he did not consider the website material to be promoting violence or to be anti-semitic.
The matter was subsequently treated under the paper’s grievance and disciplinary procedure. Aslam was invited to a meeting with GNL’s chief executive, Carolyn McCall, at which he repeated his refusal to leave the organisation or repudiate its material.
Having considered all the circumstances Ms McCall took the view that Aslam could not remain a member of the Guardian’s trainee scheme.
The paper will carry a clarification making it clear that Aslam’s membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir should have been mentioned in the context of his July 13 article.
So he wasn’t promoted after all. We await a similar clarification on Aslam’s Hizb ut-Tahrir membership from The Age.
UPDATE. The Guardian is now so fearful of blogger reprisals that it’s omitted a byline from this bitchy anti-blogger piece.
(Via LGF)