You may know that Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz has sued the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for putting him on its “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists” along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. That suit is still in progress, but his (and Hirsi Ali’s) inclusion is palpable nonsense. Nawaz is a Muslim heads a reformist organization, and both he and Hirsi Ali are Muslim reformers (see Hirsi Ali’s last book, Heretic, a blueprint for reforming Islam).

But you may not know that Nawaz also sued Thomson Reuters World-Check, which describes itself as “a highly structured database of intelligence on heightened risk individuals and organizations.” That organization desginated Nawaz as a “terrorist” despite the fact that, as head of the think tank Quilliam, he spends much of his time fighting terrorism and trying to create a more moderate version of Islam.

As the Clarion Project reports today (they did misspell “Thomson” as “Thomas”), the Reuters World-Check called Nawaz a “terrorist” on a list of people sent to subscribers who want to ensure that they “are fulfilling their legal obligations to fight financial crime” (presumably by not funding “terrorists” like Nawaz).

Nawaz sued for defamation. And he won.

Clarion:

“Mr. Nawaz’s World-Check profile had included him in the “Terrorism” category and we accept that this categorisation was made in error,” Thomas Reuters said in a statement. “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.”

So far so good. I hope he wins the lawsuit against the SPLC, which is increasingly veering from its original mission to defend civil rights and promote tolerance.

In other good news, Clarion reports that Nawaz won the 2017 PinkNews Broadcaster of the Year Award for defending gay rights on his LBC radio show. They also quote from his acceptance speech:

“When I saw that 0% of British Muslims surveyed believed that being gay was ever morally acceptable, when I saw that 52% of British Muslims wanted homosexuality to be criminalised, when I saw that the only 10 countries in the world that punished being gay with death were all Muslim-majority, I was ashamed, infuriated, outraged, and angry all at the same time,” Nawaz told the crowd on accepting the award. But I knew Muslims who were gay, and so I realised that these results were also due to fear of speaking out. It requires leadership. The sort of leadership that the British Muslim Mayor of London provided here tonight. The sort of leadership that Imam Muhammad provided here tonight by offering prayers for everyone here. And that’s the sort of leadership I, and my producer Sandra, wanted to offer through my LBC show. My show aims to be a home for you all. Thank you for this great honour in being able to speak out on your behalf.”

I was happy to see that the award ceremony was also attended by Prime Minister Theresa May, and Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party. It’s time for people to stop accusing Nawaz of “fostering terrorism.” His activities are the antithesis of terrorism.

h/t: Malgorzata