Talk:Nasser Amin

Following concerns expressed about the article, I have merged much of the content into a section in SOAS Students' Union, which you will see. I have redirected this page to that one. Joe

Funnyyettasty' is fundamentally wrong. This article concerns an area of interest to the academic community and other groups. The particular topic - and other related ones- have received media attention from around the world. Leading journalists and even former Ambassadors have made interventions. Amin's case is continuing. As suggested below, 'Funnyyettasty' appears to have a vested interest in suppressing this information...'''

While I am fully supportive of Amin's freedom of speech, I find this article to be heavily weighed in his favor and definitely using some inflammatory-style invectives (i.e. calling his detractors pro-Zionist "witchhunt"). I think this article should focus, as much as possible, on the inappropriateness of the response without resorting to labelling. In addition, I have heard that death-threats and similarly intentioned messages have been directed at those who protested against Amin's article as well. I also question whether the mention of the Islamaphobia awards is relevant in this context. The point of this article should not necessarily be to point fingers and dispense blame, but rather to point out the wrongness of the situation. Also, just as a note of caution: the Wikipedia editors have traditionally been leery of putting up articles which have a limited scope of importance. If they feel that the incident or individual lacks importance, this article will not remain. My suggestion for making it more relevant would be to put in more of an explanation for why this is important, what precedents might be set within the UK academic system, etc. And, finally, if this is an article about Amin then it should be primarily biographical in format; that is, there should be some description of Amin apart from this current controversy. FunnyYetTasty 20:02, 16 March 2006 (UTC) I'm with funnyettasty. I am very sympathetic to Mr. Amin's position, but this is not exactly encylopedia article style or content here.jackbrown 15:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC) The biggest flaw with this article is that nowhere is Amin's original article in SPIRIT magazine published. Without it, it is impossible to test anything either author claims. I have searched online everywhere: the largest quotation I could find was on Melanie Phillips' website.

'''True, we need to read the whole article. I read it in the SOAS magazine last year and I have a copy of the article, but its not on the web I think. The extracts on Melanie Philips's website have been carefully chosen to show Amin in a bad way. The sentence order on Philips's website of the article extracts has also (probably intentionally) been changed to make Amin look worse'''

I reject most -though not all- of the criticisms
I believe that you are right to ask for more biographical content, and an analysis of the wider academic context of this in the article (although Mr Richard Seymour's linked article covers the latter).

As for the suggestion that this article is 'heavily weighted' in Mr Amin's favour I believe this is wrong. The article mentions all the allegations against him, and contains the links to websites fiercely attacking him. The witchhunt description is appropriate if one takes into account the systematic international campaign.

If death threats etc have genuinely been directed at Mr Amin's protestors please could you provide evidence for this and precisely which of those who protested against Mr Amin has recieved the threats. Otherwise I am afraid this is mere hearsay. A weblink to the death threats against Mr Amin have been documented in at least one of the article's external links.

On the Islamophobia Awards: the IHRC (and many others, Muslim and non-Muslim) considered the treatment of Amin to be sufficiently bad and selective to constitute Islamophobic treatment. Hence the three nominations mentioned. You may wish to deny or downplay the significance of Islamophobia in this case, but an international human rights group and the student concerned would disagree with you.

But I am glad that you begin your comment with a recognition of Mr Amin's right to free speech.

Warm regards

A highly critical response to Mr Amin's article is also included in the 'See also' links section.

Hi

I agree with the second commenter. I do not believe that the article is biased towards Nasser Amin. The first commenter seems to be a SOAS press officer or such like, determined to get SOAS off the hook for its reprehensible treatment of a Muslim student.

Celine

I concur with that point. I believe that SOAS have tried to stop the truth getting out by posting the first message. Its embarassing - after all.

James from SOAS