Latest news with #Kelwick
Middle East Eye
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Tory MP repeats false Hamas claims about British imam in parliament
A Conservative MP has repeated the false claim that a British imam supported the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on Israel - despite a Labour MP having previously clarified that the accusation is wrong. Nick Timothy levelled the accusation against Imam Adam Kelwick on Monday during a parliamentary session. Kelwick, who is imam at Liverpool's Abdullah Quilliam Mosque, told Middle East Eye on Tuesday that Timothy had abused parliamentary privilege to make "false and defamatory" claims, and urged him to retract them. But parliamentary privilege means MPs cannot face legal action for defamatory statements made in the House of Commons. Kelwick attended an iftar hosted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Downing Street during Ramadan. Afterwards, false claims circulated online that he had prayed for Hamas. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters In a question to Security Minister Dan Jarvis on Monday, Timothy said that "the prime minister hosted Adam Kelwick, an imam who celebrated the 7 October attacks and told followers to pray for victory for Hamas". He added: "Why are the government so keen to spend time with and lend legitimacy to organisations and people they say they oppose?" Responding to Timothy, Jarvis said: "We are not, and I do not agree with the proposition that the honourable member has made. "All ministers - of course, including the prime minister - take these matters incredibly seriously, and we always engage in the most responsible way." 'Totally inaccurate' In an Instagram post on 28 October 2023, Kelwick had said: "Pray for peace, pray for mercy, pray for justice, pray for victory, pray for the deceased, pray for those still alive..." There was no mention of Hamas in the post. Conservative shadow minister falsely claims British imam supported Hamas attack Read More » In a post on X on 11 October, Kelwick had said: "David beats Goliath!" There was no mention of Hamas in that post either. On 19 March Mims Davies, shadow minister for women and shadow secretary of state for Wales, levelled the same accusation against Kelwick in parliament. Afterwards, Labour MP Sarah Owen, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for British Muslims, raised a point of order with Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle, calling Davies' statement "totally inaccurate". Owen said Kelwick "made absolutely no mention, in the post to which she referred, of Hamas or against Israel; that was added wrongly by the shadow minister. He, in fact, called for prayers of peace". She added: "Adam has spent years working on countering extremism and even uniting people through food and conversations when rioters came to attack his local mosque in Liverpool last year." 'Abusing parliamentary privilege' MEE contacted Timothy on Tuesday to ask if he would repeat his claim about Kelwick outside of parliament, and if not whether he would retract it and apologise. Timothy did not respond by time of publication. "It is disappointing to see the false and defamatory remarks repeated by Nick Timothy MP in parliament," Kelwick told MEE. 'The original claims have already been publicly debunked and it is clear that my words were misrepresented to portray a stance I have never held' - Imam Adam Kelwick "The original claims have already been publicly debunked and it is clear that my words were misrepresented to portray a stance I have never held." Kelwick added that he has "consistently condemned violence and have never expressed support for any form of extremism or hatred". "My lifelong commitment has been to peace, interfaith dialogue, and promoting harmony among all communities," he said. He further urged Timothy to "publicly retract his statement". "Abusing parliamentary privilege to make false allegations is a serious issue, and I would encourage all public figures to ensure accuracy before making such statements." Last summer, Kelwick made headlines for embracing and feeding protesters outside his mosque after Islamophobic disinformation was spread online about the killer of three children in Southport. Timothy said in 2023 that there "should be a register of imams and mosques, with unacceptable behaviour leading to preaching bans and closures". He called for a ban on the face veil in public places and a hijab ban for schoolchildren, as well as the criminalisation of "sharia marriages" and an end to public funding for mosques. "Some will say this amounts to picking on the Islamic faith," he said, "but the problem we face emanates from the Islamic world."
The National
21-03-2025
- Politics
- The National
'You are Syrian and free': British imam hosts iftar for street cleaners in Homs
British imam Adam Kelwick sought moments of joy amid the desolation during his humanitarian trip to Syria which included an Iftar in Homs. The Liverpool-based chaplain who heads the city's Abdullah Quilliam Mosque – the UK's oldest – travelled to Damascus and other Syrian cities this week to give out food parcels and money as part of the charitable work that Muslims undertake during Ramadan. On Thursday, he hosted 120 street cleaners from Homs, in western Syria, for the meal to break the Ramadan fast. 'These are the people who work hard day and night in the service of others, and the people who cleaned up the city after the previous regime had left,' Mr Kelwick told The National. They came in their light blue uniforms and danced at the end of the meal, singing, 'you are Syrian and free'. Mr Kelwick was struck by the hope and optimism of Syrians as they try to pick up the piece and recover their homes in a country that was torn apart by civil war and the Assad regime for decades. 'The feeling on the ground is that anything is better than former regime. Even if people have issues with the new one,' he said. This month, clashes in Syria's coastal region between fighters loyal to deposed former president Bashar Al Assad and forces of the interim government resulted about 1,000 people – including many civilians from the Alawite minority – being killed. This has raised fears over how the government will treat the country's minorities. The visible destruction and depopulation of major cities like Homs, which had remained under the control of the Assad regime, is overwhelming, says Mr Kelwick. 'I was expecting the situation to be bad but it's much worse than I can ever imagine. You're going past gutted building after gutted building,' he said. Mr Kelwick travelled as a volunteer with Action for Humanity, a UK-based charity previously known as Syria Relief. Though the charity had received UK government funding in the past, much of this had been 'substantially cut and reduced', he said, as priorities shifted to Ukraine in 2022. He called for more aid funding to Syria, stressing that this should come 'without strings attached', despite Prime Minister Keir Starmer's additional cuts to foreign aid announced last month. Mr Kelwick is known for having defused far-right riots outside his mosque last summer in the aftermath of the Southport attacks by inviting in some of the rioters. Days before his trip to Damascus, he attended an iftar at Downing Street with Mr Starmer. Mr Kelwick had been to Syria before during the civil war that began in 2011, but only to the north-western region that was held by the opposition to the Assad regime. He had worked for years with refugees in northern Syria, including on a project to build villages for people living in tents in the towns of Afrin and Azaz, in Aleppo governorate. This week marked his first trip to areas formerly controlled by the Assad regime, where Mr Kelwick witnessed the thousands of people returning to their devastated homes. Upon his arrival to Damascus, he went straight to the village of Jobar on the outskirts of the city, which came under heavy shelling by the Syrian army during the civil war. 'We didn't see a single building suitable to live in. The population there was 350,000 and now it's empty,' he said. They met the cemetery's caretaker Abu Fahd, who told them how he'd stayed behind after the bombing to bury hundreds of bodies, including his own father and son. Throughout the visit, women came to Abu Fahd to ask where they could find their husband's burial place, said Mr Kelwick. Another stop was the town of Kafr Zita in western Syria, north of the city of Hama and south of Idlib, where residents were returning after more than a decade of displacement. The Assad regime launched a chemical attack there in 2014, and most of the population fled to Atma tent camp in Idlib. But there was very little left of the town for them to go back to. Raifa, a resident who lost her husband and son among other relatives during the war, told Kelwick that she felt 'a mixture of happiness and sadness' about returning to her destroyed home. 'Our homes are damaged and we've lost so much,' she said. He compared the destruction to what he had seen in Mosul, in northern Iraq, which was seized by ISIS In 2014. Much of the city was destroyed in the battle by US-led coalition and Iraqi forces to remove the militants in 2017. Mr Kelwick visited in the aftermath of the war. 'You feel like they're playing a computer game where the aim is to destroy everything,' he said. In Syria, residents told him how their applications for building permits to rebuild their homes were repeatedly ignored under the former regime. Regime forces would loot the steel reinforcements of destroyed homes to sell as scrap. A silver lining is that this neglect serves as evidence today of the Assad regime's war crimes. 'Now the evidence is everywhere,' Mr Kelwick said. And though he has yet to meet any of the returning families he had known from earlier trips to north-west Syria, he expects to bump into them soon. 'It's only a matter of time,' he said.
Middle East Eye
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Conservative shadow minister falsely claims British imam supported Hamas attack
A Conservative shadow minister has been criticised for falsely claiming in parliament that a British imam had called for victory for Hamas and celebrated the 7 October attacks. Mims Davies, shadow minister for women and shadow secretary of state for Wales, levelled the accusations against Imam Adam Kelwick on Wednesday during a meeting of parliament. Kelwick, who is imam at Liverpool's Abdullah Quilliam Mosque, attended an iftar hosted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Downing Street last week. Afterwards, false claims circulated online that he had prayed for Hamas, which he vehemently rebukes. "The statement made in parliament was false, misleading and defamatory," Kelwick told Middle East Eye on Thursday. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters "I have never, and would never, express support for any terrorist organisation. My work speaks for itself, and will always be rooted in promoting harmony and bringing people together." Last summer, Kelwick made headlines for embracing and feeding protesters outside his mosque after anti-Muslim misinformation was spread online about the killer of three children in Southport. "I was just being nice to people who were being nasty," Kelwick said afterwards. On Wednesday in the House of Commons, Davies asked equalities minister Seema Malhotra whether it was "acceptable for anyone in this country to say that people should pray for victory for Hamas over Israel, or for anyone to celebrate the 7 October attacks as a David-over-Goliath situation." French politicians attack UK Ofsted chair with unfounded 'Islamist takeover' claims Read More » Davies added: "If not, why did the prime minister invite Adam Kelwick, who has said such despicable things, to Number 10 [Downing Street] just last week? "Will the minister apologise on behalf of the prime minister to the Jewish community, who need to know that this government will stand with them against violence, hatred and division - and, in fact, with communities of all races and religions?" Malhotra responded with a single line: "The shadow minister knows that Hamas is a proscribed organisation, and we will not tolerate antisemitism at any point, or in any way." In an Instagram post on 28 October 2023, Kelwick had said: "Pray for peace, pray for mercy, pray for justice, pray for victory, pray for the deceased, pray for those still alive..." There was no mention of Hamas in the post. In a post on social media platform X on 11 October, Kelwick had said: "David beats Goliath!" There was no mention of Hamas in that post either - and no suggestion that Kelwick supported the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel. 'Countering extremism' Parliamentary privilege means MPs cannot face legal action for defamatory statements made in parliament. Later on Wednesday, Sarah Owen, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for British Muslims, raised a point of order with Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle, calling Davies' statement "totally inaccurate". Owen said Kelwick "made absolutely no mention, in the post to which she referred, of Hamas or against Israel; that was added wrongly by the shadow minister. He, in fact, called for prayers of peace." She added: "Adam has spent years working on countering extremism and even uniting people through food and conversations when rioters came to attack his local mosque in Liverpool last year. Here is the PM having a lovely time in No10 with Adam Kelwick, an imam who invites people to "pray for [Hamas] victory" over Israel, celebrated 7 October as "David beats Goliath!", and hosts the worst of preachers at his mosque in Liverpool. — Nick Timothy MP (@NJ_Timothy) March 15, 2025 "I ask that the honourable member correct the record, and I remind her that should she have made such statements outside the House, there would possibly be legal action." MEE contacted Davies to ask if she would repeat her claim outside of parliament, or retract it. "My call for prayers for peace was deliberately misrepresented," Kelwick told MEE. "It is disappointing to see my words so blatantly twisted in an attempt to score political points. Kemi Badenoch: What is the new Conservative Party leader's Middle East policy? Read More » He added: "It is concerning that a member of parliament has abused parliamentary privilege to spread misinformation, and make false and slanderous claims against me - something that would be subject to legal action if it were said outside the houses of parliament. "The shadow minister should retract her words and reflect on how and why these lies were shared in the first place." Davies was not the first Conservative MP to have repeated false statements about Kelwick. MP Nick Timothy posted last week that Kelwick invited people to "pray for [Hamas] victory" - inserting the word Hamas into the quote himself. Kelwick said he has worked for years on "building bridges between Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and all other communities in the UK". "I have, and will continue to call out the suffering of the innocent Palestinian people," he said, "as I have done consistently across different conflicts around the globe."
BBC News
15-03-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Preston: 'Our Iftar is turning strangers into friends'
A Muslim leader who embraced protesters in the aftermath of the Southport attacks has spoken of the importance of "turning strangers into friends". Shaykh Adam Kelwick joined Lancashire's Muslim community at the Preston Iftar - the fast-breaking evening meal in Ramadan - for a gathering to bring people of all faiths Kelwick, who went viral for his "beautiful interactions" between Muslims and protesters in August last year, appeared with other leaders including the Iman of Southport Mosque Ibrahim Hussein."It is incredibly important in turning strangers into friends because there's no room for ignorance," he said. The seventh annual interfaith Ramadan Iftar dinner, at the Quakers Friends Meeting House, welcomed people from various backgrounds to "build bridges through friendship and understanding". An Iftar refers to the meal when Muslims break their fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan, and is commonly done as a community with people gathering to break their fast together directly after sunset. Mr Hussein shared his experiences of the night when protesters vandalised Southport mosque in the wake of the town's dance class stabbing said he experienced "great kindness" from the local community in the aftermath."The way they came together to ask us what we needed it was incredible," he said. For those attending, it was an opportunity to share their thoughts on the significance of woman at the event said: "It is really important for us as a community to come together for events like this so we can share our passion for Preston."Another attendee added: "Coming together to break bread, to share stories, to inspire each other to create a better world." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
