MR JUSTICE JOHNSON
Approved Judgment
Hegab v Spectator
hooded men, with the caption “unrest in Leicester.” The article opens with the
observation “…if you import the world’s people you import the world’s problems.” It
then describes one of the “downsides” as the disturbances which had taken place in
Leicester which, it was said, “initially broke out between local Muslims and Hindus in
the last days of August.” The following was said about the claimant:
“Hindu and Muslim groups across social media started to call
for their men to come out on the streets – which they did. The
Hindus chanted ‘Jai Shree Ram’ (‘Praise Lord Ram’) and some
were filmed carrying weapons. Muslims retaliated in kind and
in one video were seen setting light to a Hindu flag. This
inflamed tensions further and became a political scandal in the
Indian media.
Soon charming people like Mohammed Hijab, who rotates
between presenting himself as a reasoned interlocutor and a
street agitator, arrived on the scene. Hijab made a slight name
for himself last year by whipping up a mob on the streets of
London. At one anti-Israel protest addressed by Hijab in
inflammatory terms, a masked man was filmed chanting “We’ll
find some Jews. We want their blood”, though Hijab says he
had left the protest by that time and later tried to calm things
down. Of course, the police did nothing much about the crowd
itself, for the belief of the British police these days is that as
long as a mob can be dispersed at some point, it counts as a
great victory for the force.
This week Hijab cropped up in Leicester to whip up his
followers. Among other things he told them that Hindus are
ridiculous people, not least because of their belief in
reincarnation. Hijab claimed that the Hindus must live in fear
because they have been reincarnated as such “pathetic, weak
cowardly people.” “I’d rather be an animal,” he went on.
Soon both sides were accusing the other of attacking their
places of worship. Crowds of hundreds faced off in the streets
with a thin line of police officers between them. Some in the
mobs came armed with knives and other weapons….”
34.
On 21 September 2022, the second defendant posted a tweet with a link to the website
version of the article. On 22 September 2022, the claimant posted tweets in reply in
which he challenged the second defendant to show where he had said the words that
had been attributed to him. On the same day he sent an email to the first defendant’s
editor demanding that he retract statements in the article that he had said “we found
some Jews we want some blood” and “Hindus are ridiculous.” On 23 September
2022, Fraser Nelson, the first defendant’s editor, pointed out that the article did not
claim that the claimant had said “we found some Jews we want some blood” and that,
instead, the article reported the claimant’s account that he had left the protest by the
time that had been said by another man. Mr Nelson also said that the basis for the
contention that the claimant had told his followers that Hindus were ridiculous was
the video he had posted on his YouTube channel. The claimant responded with two