The unfortunate re-emergence of Irfan Ahmed

My older readers may remember Irfan Ahmed, a Liberal Democrat whose kamikaze style of blogging led to disaster in 2009.

He gave up blogging - and deleted his blog - after making some particularly distasteful comments. As the Burnley Citizen reported it at the time:

Controversial Pendle blogger Irfan Ahmed has apologised for comments in which he appeared to criticise the families of dead soldiers. 

Mr Ahmed, of Pendle LibDems, said in his political online blog: “The parents of the lost children have enjoyed the nice salaries that their children have been earning from the army.”

At the time I wrote:

I hope we will see an older, wiser Irfan return to blogging one day.

Well, he has returned. He may well be older, but sadly he is no wiser.

Because if you visit Sack Maajid Nawaz, you will find this piece of rambling nonsense:

OPEN LETTER TO NICK CLEGG AND THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS 

Dear Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, 

I write to you today on a final note to ask you to take action against Maajid Nawaz for his tweets which have insulted the Muslim community across the world. Maajid Nawaz posted a cartoon of Prophets’ Jesus and Muhammad on twitter which is against Islam. Islam is against any depictions of Prophets and for a man to do so is an insult to the Prophet Muhammad PBUH and to Muslims in general. 

I believe as a liberal it is important to allow debate and healthy debate, but what I don’t believe in practicing [sic] is attack or the mockery of a Prophet of any religion. Religion alongside ethnicity must always be respected and not mocked or attacked with petty cartoons. 

I ask you to look back in recent history, can you remember when a Danish newspaper published a cartoon about the Prophet Muhammad? There was international uproar and a boycott of Danish products. By not suspending Maajid Nawaz and investigating this matter, does the party want voters to boycott the Lib Dems as they boycotted Danish products? 

Can we as a party really afford to have over 2 Million people boycott us at the local elections this May? 

I ask you to take action immediately against Maajid Nawaz or I will have no choice but to suspend my membership of the Liberal Democrats. I will give the party until the Spring Conference to suspend Maajid Nawaz, if you fail to do so, I will personally resign as a member of the Liberal Democrats. 

Yours Sincerely, 

Irfan Ahmed
Executive Member, Pendle Liberal Democrats

Freedom of thought and expression is at the heart of Liberalism, so we must support Maajid Nawaz. If you want to sign a petition to that effect, there is one here.

As to Irfan Ahmed's threat to resign from the party, we shall just have to choke back our tears and soldier on without him.

Thanks to Left Foot Forward and to @Heresy_Corner on Twitter.