Sectarian leaflets distributed by Labour councillors in Walsall last month were created by an extremist Islamic activist, GB News can reveal.
Councillors Aftab Nawaz and Khizar Hussain, the Labour group’s leader and deputy leader respectively, are now under investigation after they were filmed engaging in sectarian chanting and leafleting at a group of persecuted minority Muslims in the West Midlands town.
They denied a link with their demonstration and any organisation that promotes violence or hatred.
The leaflets described the Ahmadis as “liars” and apostates. The leaflets also praised the “noble companions” who “fought against them”, which an expert said glorified the killings of those who have claimed to be prophets, which is central to the Ahmadiyya theology.
Khizar Hussain and Aftab Nawaz with Sir Keir Starmer
GB News
It can now be revealed that the author of the leaflet has previously been sanctioned by Ofcom for anti-Ahmadi hatred.
Muhammad Din Sialvi, who is named on the front cover of the leaflet distributed at the event, described Ahmadi Muslims as “filth” in a programme he presented on Takbeer TV in 2012.
Sialvi presented two separate programmes broadcast in June and July 2012 where callers and speakers made “derogatory and extreme” statements about the Ahmadi Muslims.
During the first Urdu-language broadcast, Sialvi said “thank you” to a caller who said: “My message to people is that these people [Ahmadis] deceive others and they can never be your sincere friends; stay away and save your faith.”
An example of the leaflet seen by GB News
GB News
In the second broadcast, filmed in Luton, Sialvi said: “Baba Sahib asked me to read the [Ahmadi] books; I said, ‘Do not read them; never read them, stay away from them as far as you can...These books are replete with filth.’”
Sialvi then used the term ‘Qadiani’, a pejorative religious slur against Ahmadis: “The word ‘Qadiani’ is so detestable that you should never even use the word ‘ex-Qadiani’ for the person who has abandoned it. It will hurt that person…We should never use such a detestable word for one who has become a Muslim.”
In correspondence with this broadcaster, councillors Nawaz and Hussain used the term “Khadiyanni” to refer to the Ahmadi Muslims, an alternative spelling for the denigratory slur term.
In the first episode that OfCom investigated, it found that Sialvi failed to challenge a guest when he described the Ahmadis as “snakes” with “monstrous” intentions and beliefs that require a “surgeon who dissects without giving anaesthesia.”
It concluded that the programme “subjected members of the Ahmadi community and their beliefs to abusive treatment.”
Sialvi’s abusive anti-Ahmadi rhetoric continued in the second broadcast, where he recited a hateful poem about the need to “remove the filth” of the Ahmadis, calling on people to “crush the enemies of the nation.”
The poem also urged people to “spill our blood in love of Muhammad, sacrifice our children in love of Muhammad.”
OfCom found both programmes to be in breach of two sections of its code, specifically blaming “the presenter Mr Sialvi himself, rather than members of the audience,” for being responsible for the problematic statements.
Takbeer TV was advertised on the leaflets distributed at the event attended by Councillors Nawaz and Hussain, with Cllr. Hussain being photographed brandishing the leaflets while chanting at a group of Ahmadi Muslims.
GB News can also reveal that Sialvi signed an open letter published last year condemning the removal of an Imam from the government’s Anti Muslim Hatred Working Group after they pushed for the banning of a film that was critical of the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter.
Qari Aslam lost his government role as an Islamophobia consultant after he agitated to “limit free expression” and undermined democratic values.
Disgraced presenter Sialvi came to his defence by signing a letter that said Aslam’s removal “represents a step backwards in our collective efforts to enhance community cohesion.”
Wasiq Wasiq, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, said: “Ahmadi Muslims have been persecuted in Pakistan since the country’s inception. It seems this persecution has breached our borders and political arena, where elected officials appear to be both sympathetic and actively supporting hatred against them.”
He added: “These developments are extremely troubling and the Labour Party must immediately suspend the councillors and carry out an investigation into the incident.
“A recent report from the Henry Jackson Society has warned that anti-blasphemy laws by radical Islamists are threatening social cohesion. The same problems now appear to be true within mainstream local politics in Walsall.”
A Labour source confirmed: “A complaint has been made and there is an on-going investigation.”
