Cllr. Ahsan Khan steps down amid talk of inadmissible intolerance UPDATED

Word reaches me that earlier in the week Labour councillors were circulated with an e-mail which announced that Cllr. Ahsan Khan, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing, had stepped down from the Cabinet, pending an independent investigation by the LBWF Monitoring Officer.

What appears to have happened is that Cllr. Khan organised an event in the Town Hall, attended by the Mayor, which was then the subject of a video posted online, the latter put together by one Qari Mahmood and propagated by Khalid Iqbal Malik.

It is this video that is the source of the problem, because it is said to display a degree of intolerance that is of reasonable and significant concern in a multicultural borough like Waltham Forest.

Apparently, Cllr. Khan has disassociated himself from sentiments expressed, as has the Mayor.

But the episode is certainly being taken very seriously, and that explains Khan’s actions.

Clearly, it will be interesting to see who precisely the alleged intolerance was directed at.

A well placed source tells me that, at meetings on Prevent, mainstream Muslim councillors have expressed strong views about the Alhmadi sect.

The Almadis previously have been the subject of prejudice in the borough, see for instance the unsavoury episode described in this Waltham Forest Guardian story:

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/10611616.Man__denied__Mosque_funeral/

It will be interesting to see whether anti-Almadi bigotry is involved here.

What won’t be acceptable in any shape or form is if the truth is hushed up. There have been far too many such scandals already.

UPDATED

A report in the Evening Standard explains all:

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-preacher-and-friend-hail-fanatic-who-killed-politician-in-pakistan-as-hero-and-martyr-a3226266.html

As a footnote, it is reasonable to ask – regardless of the issues surrounding this particular video – how it was that Cllr. Khan came to be presenting the ‘community award’ referred to, and why the presentation was taking place on local authority property.

Are such awards ‘official’? And if so, are they open to all, or do you have to be intimate with Cllr. Khan or Madam Mayor to be considered?

This blog has a reasonably large readership, plus ‘good content’, and certainly has no need to attract attention by posting videos of topless men engaging in ‘traditional games’, let alone dogs being beaten.

It is true that I do not wear dark glasses to pretend I’m hard, and the only time I have heard Cllr. Khan speak at length I found him vacuous and ill-informed.

But nevertheless perhaps I should apply?