During a heated on air debate, Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, called both the gay conservative Douglas Murray and the liberal Muslim reformist Maajid Nawaz “hate preachers.”
It could end up costing him and his Iran-backed think-tank which once branded Human Events editor Raheem Kassam "Islamophobe of the Year".
Shadjareh appeared live on Russia Today on May 17th to discuss the release of You Can’t Watch This, a new documentary centered around the censorship of political dissidents like Alex Jones and Gavin McInnes. The think tank chief – who once defended wearing the Hezbollah flag – was ostensibly there to tell the world how much he hated it, and what he hated about it.
Filmmaker Caolan Robertson confronted Shadjareh’s arguments about why he demanded a new movie exploring internet censorship should be banned when he responded with a series of bizarre claims.
“Douglas Murray and Maajid Nawaz I said are hate preachers because of the fact that they are associating acts of terrorism with ordinary citizens law-abiding Muslim community – for that they are hate preachers,” said Shadjareh.
As an outspoken journalist and political commentator, Murray responded to Shadjareh’s claims, “I learn that the Khomeinist organisation farcically known as 'The Islamic Human Rights Commission' has been trying to libel me again. This is what happened the last time one of the goons from the 'IHRC' spoke about me on air” referring to a video of a BBC apology when a similar incident happened in 2017.
“There is a certain amount of history here. Partly because the 'IHRC' finds the mass-murder of journalists a source of mirth, whilst I do not,” he continued, linking to an article he wrote for the Spectator condemning the Islamist organization’s tasteless celebration of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, in which the so-called “human rights” organization gave the French satirical magazine’s murdered staff an award for “Islamophobe of the Year.”
Not one to stop beclowning himself, Shadjareh continued on air, stating Maajid Nawaz, his other target, was also in fact a “hate preacher.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) previously accused Nawaz of being an “anti-Muslim extremist”—a label disputed by both Nawaz and numerous media outlets. It was an expensive claim, and one that Nawaz successfully contested in court, forcing the SPLC to retract its libel, issue an apology, and pay him $3.375 million to make up for the malicious comment.
Shadjareh’s performance during the debate could, at the very least, serve as an object lesson on how not to have an argument. He didn’t fare too well, and Robertson forced him to admit that he hadn’t even watched the documentary despite advocating for it to be banned.
Ian Miles Cheong is the managing editor of Human Events
