Character Assassination; An Accepted Form of Modern Murder? “Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.” Othello- William Shakespeare. Freedom of speech, the right to a defence, the right to privacy; a myriad of rights and freedoms are promised to us in accordance with the laws of the free and democratic world in which we supposedly live but how many of these promises are actually worth the paper in the law-books that they’re written on? Not many it would appear, judging from the experiences of recent years.

Some people, it would seem, have the freedom of speech to slander and to defend dishonesty while others, innocent people and usually, the victims, are denied the very basic right to defend themselves against furtive, false accusations, harassment and slander. We, as a society, quite rightly, condemn acts of violence and murder but violence need not be just physical. Character assassination is almost as lethal a crime which kills people without physically killing them. Smear campaigns abound even at the most powerful and influential levels of society. People with power and influence may be able to defend themselves against such harassment but what happens to your ordinary person, particularly, your ordinary Muslim when s/he finds him/herself the victim of such a campaign, bearing in mind the precarious situation that Muslims of the West have found themselves in following the tragic events of 9/11 and 7/7? Sadly, some of us don’t have to look very far to find out.

Take the case of Saleha, a British citizen, Muslim and UK resident since 1968. A retired teacher and ex-civil servant, she found herself being denied her rightful money for several months and was harassed by the DSS and local council repeatedly. While unemployed, past pension age and suffering from high blood pressure, she received letters from her local council telling her that they had estimated her income as being £999.99 per week, an amount she could never hope to earn even when employed! She was sent letters informing her that her circumstances had changed even though this was news to her and she had her I.D. checked on several occasions by the DSS and council. After 33 years of being a UK resident, she was also sent an asylum seeker form by the council to fill out! Her national insurance number was altered by the DSS and she was sent two different credit records by them on different occasions. Her daughter who was employed by the local council at the time found colleagues behaving in what could only be described as a hostile manner to wards her. She also noticed a strange tendency on the part of colleagues to develop fixations with particular topics of conversation which would, then, be repeated to an unusual extent for several weeks or months. Among these repeated words or themes were "asylum seekers," "impostors," and most worryingly, "explosion" and "martyr." Realisation of what was happening began to dawn when the repetition of asylum seeker coincided with her British mother, a UK resident, receiving an asylum seeker form to fill out! Within weeks of the repetition of "fiddling," "hiding," "deceiving," "explosion," and "martyr," the family had received an abusive letter from someone with a grudge ( apparently, from within the "Muslim" community), falsely accusing them of fiddling benefits, hiding from someone, deceiving people and of being somehow, connected to terrorism!

It was obvious from this point onwards and from several other such occurrences which followed (some of which were disturbing in the extreme,) that mother and daughter were victims of a very vicious and nasty smear campaign. The fact that two ordinary, innocent women, the least likely candidates for being involved in terrorism, were subject to such ridiculous speculation only underlined for them the precarious position that Muslims of the West now find themselves in after the events of 9/11 and 7/7. Sadly and rather shockingly, at times, the attacks on innocent Muslims can come even from so-called fellow Muslims with a grudge or those involved in crime ( such as I.D fraud), exploiting the fears created by recent events for their own rather sick, personal agendas. It makes it even harder for the victims if the attack is coming from aberrant members of their own community. What is most worrying is that such false accusations can often lead to the innocent victims being left unaware of how they are being misrepresented and consequently, left defenceless against such misrepresentation unless told what the charges are against them.

Once singled out and targeted, particularly, in the current sensitive political climate, such Muslims can find themselves perceived by the wider community as hate figures and a potential threat and can find themselves victimised on all sides. They could also find themselves particularly vulnerable to those with a racial/anti-Muslim agenda. Smear campaigns/ defamation in such cases can snowball out of all control ( particularly, when the victims are left without any chance to defend themselves), to the extent that a person’s whole history can be re-written and they can be presented as being the very opposite of all that they are, with extremely serious consequences for their quality of life. In such cases, justice and truth simply do not stand a chance. The Islamic view on this is clear. We are warned that “Nameemah (slander) is an abomination. It is very widely spread amongst people and very few are safe from it.” ("Slander,"- Abdul Malik Al-Qasim). The modern world trivialises the extent of the damage that slander/ malicious gossip can do and, often, rather risibly, advises the victim ( whose life and reputation have been destroyed) to just.... ignore it! This is not surprising considering that we live in a world where gossip is an obsession, where the people being slandered are quite often, not even given the chance to answer back or defend themselves against the injustice.

Islam, however, recognises its devastating effects on the lives of innocent people, viewing it as a serious crime which causes enmity, separation amongst friends, spreads malice and leads to the devastation of innocent lives. As Muslims, we are told to be different, to make the difference and not to accept distortions of the truth or to be unjust. We are urged… “You who believe, if a fasiq (disobedient/evil person) comes to you with any news, verify it lest you should harm people in ignorance and afterwards, you become regretful for what you have done.” (49:6- Al Qu'ran) In other words, we should give the victims of malicious gossip/ slander their right to a defence, the chance to prove the truth which, if innocent, they can do very easily, a chance which sadly, our society with all its posturing on rights, justice and freedoms, often, denies them, thus, devastating innocent lives. As Muslims living in precarious and difficult times, when we see fellow Muslims or even non-Muslims being seriously deprecated, it is surely our responsibility to set an example and to allow them that basic right to defend themselves ( especially, if they request it ), the right that so called democratic, equal societies promise but in reality, can often, fail to deliver.

It is especially important for Muslims to set a good example and to avoid disunity and in-fighting in a climate where all Muslims are at risk of being demonised by those ignorant of the true teachings of Islam, where people have personal views like that of a particular council worker that “Unless all the Muslims were taken out of the country, no-one could be sure that another 7/7 wouldn’t happen…but we can’t do that,” and all that has happened “makes you wonder what’s going on in the mosques,” or even that “ some terrorists can seem so normal and so nice,” a mindset which can put every normal, nice Muslim in the frame as being a possible terrorist to the extent that an innocent mother and daughter can be made objects of suspicion, serious defamation and harassment without any chance of being given their right to a defence in the apparently “democratic” and “equal” society in which we live.

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