'They tried to DESTROY my life!' Maajid Nawaz speaks out on being wrongly branded an 'anti-Muslim extremist' by liberal activists
Maajid Nawaz has spoken to GB News about his landmark legal triumph against the Southern Poverty Law Center, which resulted in a $3.4million (£2.5million) payout and a formal apology from the liberal American organisation.
The podcaster and political commentator secured what he describes as "the first and only successful case to win against the Southern Poverty Law Center" in 2018 after being wrongly listed as an "anti-Muslim extremist".
The Southern Poverty Law Cente had placed Mr Nawaz on the "extremist" list despite his work challenging Islamist ideology as a practising Muslim.
He told GB News: "When they named me as an anti-Muslim extremist, meanwhile, I'm a Muslim, of course, its intention was to destroy my life.
"When they do this, their purpose is to destroy the reputation of the targeted individual. It is to enable banks, federal agencies, and other institutions that subscribe to such lists and take this advice seriously to shut down bank accounts, to deny visas, to prohibit travel.
""All of that is done off the back of the hate lists that the Southern Poverty Law Center compiles."
The actions of the SPLC had a substantial effect on Quilliam, the counter-extremism organisation Mr Nawaz founded and chaired at the time.
He explained: "It did have a huge impact on our ability to raise funds. At the time, I was the founding chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism organisation.
"We had registered in the US as a charity, and we had to take them to court alongside Megan Meier, who at the time was with Clare Locke, a specialist defamation law firm."
In his historic win, the settlement required the SPLC to remove his name from their list and issue a public apology.
"We raised a case, I had a fund, raised some cash for it, and we also had a private donor that didn't want his name to be mentioned in public," he said.
"But we managed to raise the cash, raised the case, and in the end, in 2018, we were the first and only successful case to win against the Southern Poverty Law Center, and they had to pay $3.4million, issue a public apology, remove my name from the from the list, and of course the rest is history. Fast forward to now, and we see really what they're all about."
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Mr Nawaz drew a darkly comedic comparison to the satirical film Four Lions, suggesting the organisation's behaviour mirrored the absurd logic of extremists who propose attacking their own community to provoke conflict.
He said: "What they were doing is absurd to the point of comedic, but in a dark way. If you've seen the movie Four Lions, when the ginger convert says, 'I don't know what we can do, let's blow up a mosque, because that will encourage all the Muslims to fight the non-Muslim'. This is literally, in reality, what the Southern Poverty Law Center has been doing."
Mr Nawaz observed the SPLC controversy demonstrates how rapidly information now travels across the Atlantic, fundamentally changing how such stories unfold.
He concluded: "This Southern Poverty Law Center story, even though it's in America and I'm in Britain, because of the nature of the connectivity and the fact we're all able to communicate with each other instantly, means that we're all over the story here and there. So I think we're going through a very unique period in history, which means that we're going to be seeing some very rapid changes."
In a statement, a spokesman for the SPLC said: "The SPLC is facing a possible criminal investigation by the current U.S. administration, which it sees as politically motivated retaliation for its long history of fighting white supremacy and defending civil rights.
"The investigation appears related to its past use of paid confidential informants to gather intelligence on violent extremist and hate groups, including the Ku Klux Klan.
"This work was necessary because the organisation and its staff faced serious threats, including a 1983 firebombing and ongoing violent intimidation. Information from informants was shared with law enforcement, including the FBI, and helped save lives."
They added: "The SPLC kept its informant programme secret to protect informants and their families, and notes that it no longer uses paid informants.
"The federal government is being used to target vulnerable communities and groups that defend civil rights. It frames the current moment as part of a larger struggle between progress toward justice and resistance to social change.
"The SPLC pledges to continue its work against hate and injustice, defend itself and its staff, and rely on support from allies and civil society organisations."
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