A new low: Charlie Hebdo’s murdered staff receive an ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ award

I have always treated the ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ event with the scorn it deserves. Not least because each year this fantasy prize for a fantasy concept is run by a British Khomeinist organisation laughably named the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission.’  The nominees include anybody opposed to the agenda of Islamic extremists, including Muslims.  Of course each year, whilst laughing at it, those of us who are regular nominees also regard it as being to our great good fortune that the IHRC is a British charity operating in the United Kingdom rather than an Islamic charity operating in an Islamic country.  If the latter were the case then rather than laughing at the IHRC every year, those of us who it annually attacks would be hanging from cranes.

However, readers will perhaps excuse me if the laughter is slightly quieter this year.  The first reason is that the ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ award seems to be gaining ‘mainstream’ ground.  This year the awards were not only endorsed by Islamic extremists on the one hand and pseudo-academics like Arun Kundnani on the other, but also by a number of more prominent public figures including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams and former Telegraph journalist Peter Oborne.

Once again I made the shortlist but missed out on the main award.  However the UK award for ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ did go to Maajid Nawaz.  It would be hard to invent a better display of the agenda of the IHRC and the people involved with it.  Because of course Maajid has devoted his life to, and risks his life by, attacking the extremists within the Islamic faith – his faith.  The IHRC and their supporters seem to have much in common with fundamentalist and extremist Muslims, in that both are deeply irritated by the few brave Muslims like Nawaz.