Maajid Nawaz Wins Legal Battle Against Thomson Reuters World Check

18/10/2017

Thomson Reuters World Check has admitted that Maajid Nawaz should never have been listed under their ‘terrorism’ designation, and will pay significant defamation damages to compensate for the harm that has been caused to Nawaz’s personal and professional reputation. Nawaz was represented by Mark Lewis of Seddons law firm.

Thomson Reuters have said:

“Mr. Nawaz’s World-Check profile had included him in the “Terrorism” category and we accept that this categorisation was made in error. We corrected this error on 27th April 2016 and removed Mr. Nawaz from that category. We have apologized to Mr. Nawaz for the error and apologize to our subscribers for any misunderstanding.”

In 2016, VICE News broke the story that Quilliam’s Founder Maajid Nawaz was placed on a ‘terrorism blacklist’ within Thomson Reuters World-Check database.

In the original story, two senior World-Check employees, who asked not to be named, told VICE News that in over eight years of working at the firm they had not seen a single case of an individual successfully challenging their terror designation.

Earlier this year, the BBC were also forced to apologise live on air to Maajid Nawaz after he was called an ‘extremist’ during a live broadcast.

Maajid Nawaz is now 2-0 in the fight against lies, aimed at damaging his reputation.

As many are aware, Maajid Nawaz has announced his intention to sue the Southern Poverty Law Center for defamation after they actually named him on a list of ‘Anti-Muslim Extremists’ and asserted among other falsehoods that Nawaz believes ‘all Muslims are potential terrorists’ and claiming that he wants ‘all Mosques to be surveilled’.

Because of the extensive legal costs of defamation cases in the U.S., Nawaz has been crowd-funding his legal fund against the SPLC and has successfully passed Phase 1 thanks to the generous donations from his supporters. Yet more support is needed to bring the SPLC to justice and to fund the entire legal case.

Maajid Nawaz said:

“That a reforming liberal Muslim like me who attempts to hold a rational conversation around religion, identity and extremism is designated under a ‘Muslim terrorism’ category in the UK, while simultaneously being listed as an ‘anti-Muslim extremist’ in the USA, speaks to our hysterical and irrational climate today.

Support my struggle for reason by donating to bring the SPLC to justice at www.maajidnawaz.com. I pledge to donate all winnings to my US 501c3 charity.

To the mega-rich bullies at the SPLC, I say: your defamation of individuals who themselves have been the victims of extremism and who devote their lives to fighting extremism by calling them “extremists” is a moral outrage. It is time that you be brought to justice”

Read the full exclusive story by Namir Shabibi here.