Houriya Ahmed

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Houriya Ahmed on TV

Houriya Ahmed was a researcher at the right wing think tank the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), editor of The Spittoon blog, and is a member of Sisters Against Violent Extremism (SAVE UK). According to the CSC's website she 'completed her BA in Anthropology and Law at the London School of Economics, and then took an MA in International Studies and Diplomacy at the School of Oriental and African Studies.' [1]

Misrepresentation of sources

In a post on The Spittoon, after quoting at length an interview with the antiwar Afghan parliamentarian Malalai Joya, Ahmed concludes:

The deeply moving story of Malalai Joya highlights that the West should not only be fighting in Afghanistan to protect its citizens, but should help in implementing justice for the Afghan people; justice that they so desperately seek and deserve.[2]

This is a peculiar interpretation of an article in which Joya refers to the Western occupation as an 'enemy', and tells the interviewer,

If she were president of Afghanistan...she would ask all foreign troops to leave immediately. She says that it is wrong to say Afghanistan will simply collapse into civil war if that happens. "What about the civil war now?...The longer the foreign troops stay in Afghanistan doing what they are doing, the worse the eventual civil war will be for the Afghan people."
The Afghan public, she adds, are on her side, pointing to a recent opinion poll showing 60 per cent of Afghans want an immediate Nato withdrawal.[3]

Affiliations

Publications

Spittoon articles

Notes

  1. Centre for Social Cohesion, Who we are, accessed 19 August 2009
  2. Houriya Ahmed, The Story of Malalai Joya, The Spittoon, 30 July 2009
  3. Johann Hari, Malalai Joya: The woman who will not be silenced, The Independent, 28 July 2009