Nazir Ahmed, Baron Ahmed
(born 1958) is a member of the House of Lords
, having become the United Kingdom
's first Muslim life peer in 1998. Many of his political
activities relate to the
Islamic community
both in the UK and abroad, and he has often attracted controversy.
He was a member of the
Labour
Party, until he was expelled from it on 25 February 2009, after
receiving a custodial sentence for dangerous driving.
Early life
Ahmed was
born in Mirpur
(Azad Kashmir
, Pakistan
) but soon
after his birth his family migrated to the UK, where he was brought
up. He attended Spurley Hey Comprehensive school, then
Thomas Rotherham Sixth Form College.
He studied Public
Administration at Sheffield Hallam University
and joined the Labour Party when he was 18 years
old.
Politics
While he worked during the week-day as a
green grocer, he began his political career as
a local councillor, with most of his activity centred around the
North of England. He founded the British Muslim Councillors' Forum
in 1992. Ahmed was also made a
Justice of the Peace in the same year
and chaired the South Yorkshire Labour Party for some years.
In 1998
Ahmed was appointed to the House of Lords, becoming the first
Muslim life peer as Baron Ahmed, of Rotherham
in the County of South Yorkshire
. Lord Ahmed took his oath on the
Qur'an. At the age of 40, he was also one of the
youngest peers to achieve this position. As a Muslim peer, much of
his activities relate to the Muslim community, both at home and
internationally.
Ahmed led one of the first delegations on
behalf of the British Government on the Muslim pilgrimage of the
Hajj, to Saudi Arabia
and has advocated legislation against religious
discrimination, international terrorism and forced
marriages.
At home, Ahmed speaks on wider equality issues, and has spoken
several times on issues of race, religion and gender. He is seen as
one of the leaders of the Muslim community. He claims to have tried
to calm tensions following the aftermath of the
11 September attacks in 2001. However,
on 23 February 2005, he hosted a book launch in the House of Lords
for the notorious antisemite
Israel
Shamir, during which the latter claimed, among other things:
“The
Jews like an Empire... This love of Empire
explains the easiness Jews change their allegiance... Simple minds
call it ‘treacherous behaviour’, but it is actually love of Empire
per se.” Although this invitation raised some controversy, Ahmed
firmly refused to discuss the matter.
In August 2006 he was a signatory to an open letter to
Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, criticising the
UK's foreign policy.. In 2007 he responded to the award of a
knighthood to
Salman Rushdie by claiming he was appalled,
stating that Rushdie had 'blood on his hands'.
In
September 2007, Ahmed flew to Islamabad
with Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in a bid to end Sharif's exile
from the country by military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who had ousted him in a
coup d'état. Ahmed
negotiated with police to allow Sharif to enter the airport
terminal and pass through
customs, but
Sharif was arrested later, and deported.
Since the
reform of the
House of Lords, Ahmed took over from
Lord Sudeley to act
as Host for the
Forum for
Stable Currencies.
On 19 June 2007 Lord Ahmed criticised the honouring of
Salman Rushdie with a knighthood because of
what Lord Ahmed saw as Rushdie's offensiveness to Islam. He was
reported to have said, "It's hypocrisy by Tony Blair who two weeks
ago was talking about building bridges to mainstream Muslims, and
then he's honouring a man who has insulted the British public and
been divisive in community relations." "This man not only provoked
violence around the world because of his writings, but there were
many people who were killed around the world. Forgiving and
forgetting is one thing, but honouring the man who has blood on his
hands, sort of, because of what he did, I think is going a bit too
far." He also said on
BBC Radio 4's
PM programme that he had been appalled
by the award to a man he accused of having 'blood on his
hands'.
In
November 2007 Ahmed was involved in a diplomatic effort to secure
the release of Gillian Gibbons from
custody in Sudan
. The
teacher, Gillian Gibbons, allowed her class to name a teddy bear
Muhammad.
Lord Ahmed, from Britain's ruling Labour
Party, and Baroness Warsi, an
opposition Conservative, visited Khartoum
and had a meeting with the President of
Sudan. Following this the President pardoned Ms Gibbons and
she was allowed to return to the UK.
In June 2008, political editor of
Newsnight,
Michael
Crick, reported that Ahmed had been rumoured to be preparing to
defect to the
Conservative
Party, but that he had denied this.
Activities
As a resident of Rotherham, Ahmed has spoken on behalf of the
communities in that region, particularly the families of the former
steelworkers of the 1960s, from the
Indian subcontinent who are now
second or third generation British. He has expressed that he is
anxious to see that these regions continue to live peacefully
amidst the growing move towards the
far
right across Europe, and strives to encourage positive
integration into society so that people of all cultures can live
together harmoniously.
Born in
the region, Ahmed has a personal interest in seeing a peaceful
resolve to the ongoing bloody dispute in Kashmir
and seeks
international mediation to achieve this. As well as being an
active figure in the Indian Subcontinent, he has worked on the
plight of Muslims around the world ranging from the collapse of
former
Yugoslavia, to the
Chechens and
Palestinians. He has been on many delegations
to the
Arab world, the US, Eastern Europe,
Africa, the former states of the USSR and the Far East, meeting
with heads of state to discuss their respective problems and how he
may be able to assist them.
Ahmed helps with various charitable causes and is on the board of
several organisations from local groups such as his position as
President of South Yorkshire
Victim
Support, to international bodies such as his board membership
on the SAARC Foundation.
The World Forum
Lord Ahmed was among the founders of
The
World Forum, an organization set up to promote world peace in
the after math of the 9/11 with an effort to build bridges of
understanding between The Muslim World and the West by reviving a
tradition of Dialogue between people, cultures and civilizations
based on tolerance. ( http://www.theworldforum.com)
Controversies
In
December 2001, Lord Ahmed claimed that his phone had been tapped by the government because of his opposition
to its intervention in Afghanistan
. He claimed he had a heated conversation with
Foreign
Office
minister Denis
MacShane, during which Dr MacShane claimed to have transcripts
of Lord Ahmed's private conversations. The government denied
that Lord Ahmed was under surveillance, and Dr MacShane said that
his remarks had been misinterpreted.
On 23 February 2005, Lord Ahmed hosted a book launch in the House
of Lords for anti-Zionist author
Israel
Shamir.On the 22 March,
Stephen
Pollard, in a guest editorial appearing in
the Times, lambasted the event. In his piece
entitled
'Lord Ahmed's Unwelcome Guest', Pollard opines
that Shamir "is, in fact, a Swedish-domiciled anti-Semite also
known as Jöran Jermas.”Pollard goes on to characterize the speech
entitled
'Jews and Empire’ as containing anti-Semitic
references such as "Jews control ... a big share of mass media";
'the Jewish supremacy drive' as the one reason for wars in the
Middle East, and that 'Jews love Empire'. Shamir also suggested
that the large Muslim population in Britain was important to turn
the tide of 'Judaic Values' in Britain.Lord Ahmed refused to
comment on the remarks of Shamir.
On 25 July 2005 Lord Ahmed, while interviewing with
Robert Siegel on
National Public Radio said that the
suicide bombers of 7/7
had an "identity crisis" and, that "unfortunately, our imams and
mosques have not been able to communicate the true message of Islam
in the language that these young people can understand."
Christopher Orlet of The American Spectator did not agree with Lord
Ahmed's "identity crisis." He said, "That's not an identity crisis,
Lord Ahmed, that's religious psychopathy. That's a bloodthirstiness
that makes Dracula look like a teetotaler." Lord Ahmed did
acknowledge, "the community leaders and religious leaders, who have
kept very close contacts with South Asia and the Middle East rather
than keeping a good contact with the British society where we
live."
On 30
November 2006, the New Statesman
'revealed' that Lord Ahmed campaigned against his
fellow Muslim and Labour parliamentarian Shahid Malik during the Dewsbury
election in 2005. Ahmed instead backed
Sayeeda Warsi, vice-chair of the
Conservative Party, a personal friend. According to the New
Statesman's report, Warsi "welcomed Lord Ahmed's support". The New
Statesman confirmed that Lord Ahmed denies supporting the
Conservative Party in any way.
On the
11th of February Melanie Phillips
(columnist) claimed that Lord Ahmed had threatened to "bring a
force of 10,000 Muslims to lay siege to the Lords if the
campaigning anti-Islamist Dutch MP Geert
Wilders was allowed to speak" at a broadcast of the film
Fitna Mr Wilder's had been
invited by Peers from the House of Lords to debate issues of social inclusion.. This
claim was later denied by Lord Ahmed although House of Lords'
authorities had determined to provide adequate security if
necessary, in the event, the film
Fitna was broadcast as
planned but Mr Wilders denied entry to the UK, this meanwhile led
many commentators to deplore the action by the Home Secretary
Jacqui Smith as appeasement.
Fatal road crash and subsequent jail sentence
On 25 December 2007, Lord Ahmed was injured in a crash on the
M1 motorway near Rotherham in which
Martin Gombar, 28, was killed. Mr Gombar had been drinking alcohol
before the crash and the vehicle had turned round and stopped,
straddling the second and third (outer) lane, following a collision
with the central reservation (median). Although initially leaving
his vehicle, he returned to the car apparently to retrieve his
mobile phone before being hit by Lord Ahmed, who was driving his
Jaguar X-Type. Lord Ahmed's wife and
mother, who were passengers in his car, also received minor
injuries.
On 1 December 2008, Lord Ahmed appeared at Sheffield
Magistrates' Court in connection with a
charge of dangerous driving. Lord Ahmed admitted sending and
receiving five
text messages on his
phone while driving two minutes before the crash, and pleaded
guilty to the charge before him. He was banned from driving until
his sentencing. On 22 December, Sheffield Magistrates' Court
referred the case for sentencing at the
Crown Court on 19 January due to its
"aggravating features". This was later put back until 25 February.
Lord Ahmed was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, which meant he
would serve six actual weeks in jail and was disqualifed from
driving for 12 months. He was expelled from the Labour Party on 25
February.
On 12 March 2009 Lord Ahmed was freed by the Court of Appeal. Lady
Justice Hallett said it was important to state that Ahmed's offence
was one of dangerous driving, not of causing death by dangerous
driving. Hallett said that there was "little or nothing" Ahmed
could have done to avoid the collision and that after being knocked
unconscious, he had come to and 'risked his life trying to flag
down other vehicles to stop them colliding with the Audi or his
car'. She said that while his prison sentence had been justified,
the court had been persuaded it could now take an "exceptional"
course and suspend the sentence for 12 months. Lord Ahmed was freed
just 16 days into his sentence.
Family life
Ahmed married Sakina Bibi in 1974. They have three children and two
grandchildren, and continue to live in Rotherham. He also lives in
Aldersbrook, London E12.
Notes
- "Lord Ahmed's unwelcome guest", Stephen Pollard, in
The Times
- BBC NEWS | NEWSNIGHT | Michael Crick's blog | "I
will not defect," says Labour peer
- Lord Ahmed: Suicide Bombers Had Identity
Crisis
- Christopher Orlet Refuses to Buy Lord Ahmed's
Defense of Suicide Bombers
- Lord Ahmed: Muslims Failed to Build Relations with
their British Neighbors
- "Britain capitulates to terror", Melanie Phillips,
in The
Spectator
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/13/civil-liberties-freedom-of-speech
- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,499408,00.html
-
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/2009_02_23_US_lawmaker_hosts_anti-Islamic_Dutch_lawmaker
- RSA - Ahmed, Lord
- Planning application No. 04/01184/FUL, London
Borough of Barking and Dagenham
HE lives in Rotherham. And has three grandchildren.
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