I wrote about “community”speak in The Freethinker.

The day after the terror attack near Finsbury Park Mosque, the BBC interviewed Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the ironically named Islamic Human Rights Commission.

The IHRC is in fact not so much a human rights organization as a public relations firm with one client: a reactionary theocratic version of Islam. In 2015 it distinguished itself by giving Charlie Hebdo an award for “Islamophobia” two months after 12 members of its staff were murdered by the Kouachi brothers, who shouted the obligatory “Allahu akbar” afterwards.

Why does the BBC consult organizations like that? Why doesn’t it talk to the not loathsome organizations instead? Why doesn’t it talk to women instead of men? Why doesn’t it talk to liberals instead of reactionaries?