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AnnouncementsNovember 5 2022, 9:42 am

UK Academic Makes Scurrilous Accusation Against GIOR Senior Editor

It has come to our atten­tion that Vic­tor J. Willi, a UK-based aca­d­e­m­ic, has pub­lished a book titled “The Fourth Ordeal” in which he alleges that GIOR Senior Edi­tor Steven Mer­ley is some­how asso­ci­at­ed with US far-right ide­o­logues Frank Gaffney, Pamela Gel­lar, and Robert Spencer. This claim is scur­rilous and entire­ly false. Mr. Mer­ley has nev­er had any asso­ci­a­tion of any kind with these indi­vid­u­als. In fact, Mr. Mer­ley has a long record of oppos­ing extrem­ism of all kinds and has strong­ly crit­i­cized Mr. Gaffney as well as the rightwing ide­o­logues with whom he is asso­ci­at­ed. Mr. Mer­ley has also pub­licly labeled Gel­lar and Spencer as “anti-Islam­ic blog­gers” and referred to their extrem­ist ide­ol­o­gy. As renowned British jour­nal­ist John Ware, for­mer­ly with the BBC, has writ­ten:

Just as the US Jus­tice Depart­ment and FBI take Mer­ley’s work seri­ous­ly, we should too. He is no ide­o­logue and is as trou­bled by right-wing groups demon­is­ing ordi­nary Mus­lims today as he is by the Broth­er­hood itself.

Legal action against the author and the pub­lish­er is under consideration.

 

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