Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. there clearly is no consensus to delete this but there remain real issues with BLPs being inserted Spartaz Humbug! 06:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin


This article was speedily deleted by one administrator, and speedily undeleted by another. A third opined that it should be re-deleted. In the ensuing discussion it transpired that there was an OTRS ticket covering this article. To avoid a wheel war, I have used ordinary editors' tools to bring this to AFD to be discussed. Other people have used ordinary editors' tools to speedily blank sections of the article that have been considered particularly worrisome and poorly sourced. I urge caution on the part of anyone attempting to improve or rescue this article as the discussion progresses. Do not resurrect blanked or other material from the edit history unless you can source it unimpeachably. There are concerns that this article is being used as a coatrack for discussions of another subject with no sourcing to support the linkage of the twain, and is making very serious accusations that have yet to be upheld in a court of law. I note that one source mentioning this person explicitly states that "So far, Scotland Yard has refused to act on Channel Four's evidence.". Other serious questions about the sourcing have been raised at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, which I recommend reading. Uncle G (talk) 20:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: It will be helpful for the readers if you specifically mention the policy violations here (e.g., WP:N, WP:V, WP:BLP etc.). --Ragib (talk) 20:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment How does this "Pending Changes" thing work? I've added some sources and refs to the article, but they're on a pending changes page at the moment. Silver  seren C 22:19, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep I've been keeping up with the situation and it seems that the main problem is that the subject of the article filed an OTRS ticket because of information in the article about alleged involvement in war crimes activities. He was never charged with such and, thus, got the newspapers (like the Guardian) in trouble with libel for stating that he was. I think that he is a rather important person for what he's in charge of (Muslim Aid and other things) and for his coverage in sources. I also think the war crimes information can be put in if it's presented in a NPOV manner that uses the Guardian source I put in to show that the Guardian rescinded what it said and explained that he was never charged. If this is very clearly pointed out in the article, then it should work fine. Silver  seren C 23:08, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Please help me understand what you are saying. This person was accused of a war crime and then exhonorated?Jarhed (talk) 05:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Pretty much, yeah. He was accused of being a part of certain war crimes and was brought before a tribunal, but he was acquitted, as he hadn't actually been involved. The article, prior, made it seem like he had been convicted, when he wasn't. (And the convicted argument was based on a flawed Guardian article that was then removed and they apologized for printing it.) Silver  seren C 05:16, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * So this person was wrongly accused of war crimes, and somebody thinks it is ok to repeat the unproven allegations? What justification do they give for thinking that this might be ok?Jarhed (talk) 05:27, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd like to correct part of Seren's comment above. The subject is accused of being a leader of a militia, and alleged to be the main figure behind abduction of a number of intellectuals during the Bangladesh Liberation War. However, the subject was not brought before a tribunal, as the war crimes trials for that war only recently started in Bangladesh. So, technically, he was not acquitted in a court of law, and also not convicted either. There is a pending court case against him in Bangladesh, but that has not gone to trial yet and so no conviction/acquittal. The war crimes allegations were supported not by the guardian article, but by a 1972 report from the New York Times (which of course is only an allegation on the subject, and not conclusive evidence of his crimes). --Ragib (talk) 06:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, if I may play devil's advocate for a moment, there is a possibility that these allegations are true. The group Mueen-Uddin is alleged to have been part of were not nice people, & there is understandably a lot of people who want to see all of their members punished. However, the evidence is pretty thin that he was part of this group, let alone committed these crimes; to state he was a war criminal is well within the realm of original research. And then there are concerns about libel or BLP policy by including that allegation, which some people would argue is more important than violating No original research. -- llywrch (talk) 06:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Llywrch pretty much explains the issue correctly, "war criminal" is a specific legal term, and applying that to the subject is questionable without judicial decisions from war crimes tribunals. It will be against original research policy to claim the subject as a "war criminal" based on the allegations alone. But there are indeed *allegations* of the subject's involvement in certain acts of violence during the war (for which the subject has not been convicted or acquitted, as there has not been a trial (not unusual, since like Cambodia, the war crimes tribunals in Bangladesh were not set up till this year). In any case, the bottom line is, we cannot term the subject as a criminal of any type unless a court of law says so ... based even on the NYT reference, it can only be stated that the NYT report mentions *allegations* against him. It's not Wikipedia's duty to judge anyone. --Ragib (talk) 06:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

What makes you think it is ok to mention the allegations at all?--Jarhed (talk) 10:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Technically speaking, many of today's militants have not been tried in a court of law (they haven't been captured to begin with), nor been convicted/acquitted. Yet, their biographies do mention the allegations (of course, the allegations have to come from reliable sources). The point is, if there are verifiable accusations against a subject, from reliable sources, why should that information not be mentioned (mentioned as, say, "X alleges that Y did Z")? --Ragib (talk) 10:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If you think that unproven allegations are automaticallly ok, then you haven't read the BLP policy. BLP urges caution about such allegations. In addition, most of the rules here at WP are guidelines that can be violated when needed. BLP is instead a policy that cannot be violated. Once again, I ask you what makes you think that it is ok to mention unproven allegations in a BLP?--Jarhed (talk) 17:04, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Because they are discussed in reliable sources, as was stated before. We just have to make sure that we say that they are allegations that were stated by so and so newspaper and stuff like that. We are not going to present the allegations as fact, that would be violating BLP. But presenting the allegations as allegations is well within policy. Silver  seren C 17:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And you appear not to have read the BLP policy, as I stated before. Once again, I would like to know precisely which part of the BLP policy do you believe allows you to mention unproven allegations, particularly of a crime such as a war atrocity.Jarhed (talk) 22:09, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I notice that you specifically don't point out what parts of BLP you think the article is violating. But, BLP states "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." Well, we definitely have reliable sources to use, so that means that the material can be placed in the article. Could you please explain what part of BLP the article is violating? Silver  seren C 22:37, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The article (before it was blanked) violates all three style sections here: WP:BLPSTYLE. It was not conservative, was partisan, gave disproportionate space to negative data, was biased and non-neutral, and constituted an attack page. There was almost nothing in the article except for the unproven allegations. I am disturbed that you think that such an article is ok.Jarhed (talk) 01:34, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * ...that's why the article was blanked. But that has nothing to do with the notability of the subject. That just means that the article needs to be rewritten in an NPOV manner that doesn't give undue weight to the allegations. I never said that the article as it was prior was okay, please stop putting words in my mouth. Silver  seren C 01:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I am very sorry and I apologize. I assure you that I want a war criminal documented just as much as anyone. I just want to make sure that we are adhering to BLP.Jarhed (talk) 05:45, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bangladesh-related deletion discussions.  --  Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:13, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions.  --  Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  --  Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions.  --  Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep In the absence of any actual policy violations of any part of the article quoted by anyone, obviously this should default to keep. Jtrainor (talk) 00:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * So are there any actual policy violations?Jarhed (talk) 17:30, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * You can see the article yourself, no there aren't. Silver  seren C 17:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes there certainly are, but I was asking this editor to clarify his keep vote.Jarhed (talk) 22:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * As the first deleting administrator, keep - assuming the article isn't used as a coatrack, and isn't libellous. Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 09:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well is it used as a coatrack or is it libelous?Jarhed (talk) 17:30, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a single line...so, no. Silver  seren C 17:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes to both questions, but I was asking the editor to clarify his keep vote.Jarhed (talk) 22:13, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It was before it was cleaned up - I think it's notable, I just believe that the previous content was unacceptable for an article. Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 11:34, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: Would anyone object if we used revisiondelete on the libellous revisions? Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 09:21, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Which revisions are you thinking about? In the section I consider a coatrack -- & which I removed from the article -- there is some material that I believe should be moved to Al-Badr (East Pakistan), mostly about prosecution of alleged Al-Badr members. (Then again, having looked at this topic for the first time, there are a lot of articles about alleged atrocities. I'm not certain where this material would fit best.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:23, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete: Subject lacks substantial coverage in reliable secondary sources.--Jarhed (talk) 10:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * How is it lacking coverage? What's wrong with the sources in the article? Silver  seren C 16:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The sources in the article do not constitute substantial coverage. In my opinion, this individual fails notability guidelines and the BLP should be deleted.Jarhed (talk) 17:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Repeating an assertion does not make it a fact. Please explain. -- llywrch (talk) 06:25, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. Apart from the withdrawn Guardian article, he has not been the subject of detailed and specific coverage. GoogleNews results are fairly skimpy and none of the coverage focuses on him - typically he is briefly quoted/mentioned in passing. The same is true for the BBC News ref cited in the article. There are also, obviously, significant potential BLP issues here. If more specific coverage develops later, an article may become appropriate then. Nsk92 (talk) 16:13, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree precisely with you.Jarhed (talk) 17:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep sources aren't the best but are enough. Being chairman of a notable organization helps.  As far as content goes, I think it would be wrong not to accurately mention the situation with the Guardian and to cite the NYT article.  All of it should be accurate though.  Not "is war criminal" but "NYT reported X" and "Guardian reported Y but later withdrew" etc.  That stuff should be a fairly short part of the article (say no more than 150 words or 25% of the article whichever is larger) due to WP:UNDUE and even WP:BLP. Hobit (talk) 17:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Chairmanship of a notable organization is not sufficient alone for notability. As for the content, I think a one or two sentence mention of notable coverage with the lack of proof featured prominently might be ok. Certainly not in the lede. As someone else has pointed out, once the unproven allegations are removed from this article there is not much left.--Jarhed (talk) 22:09, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I feel that the coverage about the allegations should be included and certainly counts toward WP:N. Being chairman shows he's doing something that is actually worthy of note beyond those allegations.  The coverage seems fine, and we can use the organization's bio to suplement the article.  Once notability is established we can use non-independent RSes. Hobit (talk) 00:32, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If the result is keep, I agree with you that the article can be fixed.Jarhed (talk) 01:39, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment A new account made an edit to the page and I let it through pending revision, as it looks to work well, without giving undue weight to the allegations. Indeed, only having one sentence about them. Does this work with everyone? Silver  seren C 18:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Per Hobit. Clearly notable.  Chairman of Muslim Aid, and Vice-Chairman of East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre?  Without a doubt.  Issues that are other than concerns about notability are fine focuses of concern for another page.  But not for AfD.  Easy one.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:40, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.