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see George G
elpen and he has been he has been very
critical critical there towards MQM so
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n made it or George G election
har towards the Muslim Community in UK
especially Redford West or
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so let's talk to George
G what exactly is going on
in Bradford West especially
election George how are
you well uh considering the
circumstances by the grace of God I'm
good thank you very much the sun is
shining I'm back in London surrounded by
my many children mashallah and uh
feeling a little bit better than I did
yesterday and the day before so you have
like lots of children in London they
putting up in London not in
Bradford uh well of course I lived in
both places uh in London during the week
and in Bradford at the weekends but uh
no more I'm back in my London house now
okay so uh what are your plans now what
what do you plan to do now you are a
politician but you don't have a seat now
you lost elections well that's right of
course I'm not the only politician to
have lost his seat and many politicians
in many elections
lose their seats the important thing is
that they don't lose heart and that they
don't lose their principles and I can
assure you neither will happen to me I
have many other things to do I'm about
to release a film a
90minut uh featurelength documentary on
Tony Blair called the killings of Tony
Blair which I think will be a very big
uh uh success I'm hoping so in any case
I'm still presenting my television
programs three television programs on
three different stations and of course
I'll write uh and who knows what the
next political electoral battle will
be what is this movie all about killing
of Tony
Blair well it was the it is the uh
biggest crowdfunded film in British
history and the largest crowdfunding
budget for a documentary film in the
world uh such is the appetite for
bringing Tony Blair to book uh putting
him in the dock if not literally the
dock then metaphorically the dock it
deals with three killings first of all
the killing of the labor party as we
knew it its transformation from one
thing into another a
metamorphosis the second killing is a
million people in Iraq an uncounted
number in Afghanistan and in the
extremism that's now cascading around
the world many many more corpses have
been laid in the ground and the third
killing is the financial killing that he
has been making out of the previous two
killings which has netted him 100
million pounds in just seven years since
leaving office so there's a lot of uh
interest in such a story and a lot
public interest in learning the lessons
from such a story so it'll be coming to
Cinemas and on some kind of pay-per-view
platform Netflix or one of the others uh
quite soon within the next uh month or
so so very this is very interesting and
um can you come up with a precise date
about this documentary which you're
coming up with well I've just returned
after six weeks uh steud day-to-day 247
really campaigning in badford so I'm
behind the curve a little bit but
tomorrow I'm going to view a 2hour edit
of the film we had tens of hours so it's
now down to 2 hours so half an hour
still to be locked off uh and then that
will be uh finished it will go for the
various Technical colorization and sound
uh coordination and so on but uh
tomorrow God willing I'll see a good um
a good percentage of what's finally
going to be in the film how it's finally
going to look like you said that uh in
this documentary uh you're like uh
addressing this uh area also about Iraq
and uh yes what exactly are you like
focusing on Iraq in this particular
documentary well it's it's
chronological uh to some extent not
entirely it starts with Mr Blair's
capture of the labor party on the death
of the previous leader John Smith and
how he set about murdering the labor
party as it previously was I was a
member of it for 36 years and a member
of parliament for it for almost 20 years
and so that killing is particularly
important to me but probably not as
important to the international audience
so it moves quite swiftly on to the
second stage which is the killing of all
these people in Iraq in Afghanistan in
drone attacks in Pakistan all the deaths
caused by the so-called war on terror uh
which has really been a war of Terror
and all the extremism that it has
spawned indirectly but as a result of
what happened and then I would say the
Lion Share of the film deals with the
financial killing Mr Blair
is now working for uh it's almost
difficult to count the number of grizzly
regimes dictatorships for whom he's now
working with whom he's now profiting uh
including many of them in the Middle
East which is a clear conflict of
interest of course given his position as
the Middle East peace Envoy the least
successful peace Envoy in history but
financially he's uh really done
extremely well transforming him himself
into one of the richest men in the
country and it was my duty to defend the
community to defend the Muslims and to
defend the pakistanis in uh in B and
that's what I tried to
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do okay uh you know
uh there was a
time in 1994 before you when you visited
Iraq and uh yes you you made a speech in
favor of Saddam Hussein and you then
said that is it was not for Saddam
Hussein it was for the people of Iraq
and you said that you quote quote in
quote I salute your courage sir I salute
your courage Your strength your uh your
courage was this for uh I salute your
courage and your strength was the were
these comments for Saddam Hussein or the
people of
Iraq well there were for the people of
Iraq as I've explained uh I don't know
how many thousands of times now uh and
uh how little did I know then how much
courage how much strength how much
indefatigability they were going to have
to find because of course course they
endured uh a further decade of economic
sanctions which were killing Iraqi
children at the rate of one every seven
minutes of every day and night and then
they were invaded again uh occupied and
now are atomized into dozens of militia
Thoms instead of a single Iraq State and
of course although there was no al-Qaeda
in Iraq before Bush and Blair invaded it
not only is there now a huge presence of
al-Qaeda in fact Al-Qaeda are now
moderate compared to the Isis phenomenon
which has been spawned by
Al-Qaeda uh so it has been an absolute
catastrophe the whole Iraq story a
catastrophe for Iraq a catastrophe for
the region a catastrophe for the umah
and a catastrophe for the world that's a
pretty pretty strong series of
catastrophes and nobody has been held to
account for it far from being punished
Mr Blair has profited far from being
punished Mr Bush is uh coloring in his
books in his Presidential Library
entirely
unmolested uh and those of us who stood
out against them are the ones who uh The
Establishment has unrelentingly tried to
punish uh but God is greater than all of
those and truth will out and our film I
hope is a contribution to that
truth uh you
testified uh I'll just go to the United
States again uh you testified to the
United States Senate in 205 over alleged
illicit payments from the United Nations
oil for food program what was that all
about well it's part of the uh part of
the chain of events I just described
that those who committed the crimes
against Iraq and against the world have
profited and uh and none of them have
been punished or held to account and
those who stood against them uh they
have attempted to punish in the case of
my appearance which uh I insisted upon
making they didn't call me or even want
me to come uh I insisted on holding them
to account and if people watch it on
YouTube where tens of millions of people
have it was probably my finest hour I
came there not as the accused but as the
accuser and pointed to them dripping in
the blood as they were of what has
turned into millions of people and spoke
the truth in the court of sulan which as
you know is uh is a is the right thing
to
do okay um I just want to come to the
elections now because we have very very
short span over here uh I wish we had a
longer period we we could have
interacted with you but we have a very
short period with us and uh as you know
you a u TV uh show host yourself um yes
let's come to the uh breadfood West
election field where you lost the
elections uh from Naas
sha you made some Acquisitions against
Naas like uh like about forced marriage
of Naas and uh like about uh there were
some other Acquisitions I know how
things work in the election campaign but
then again did you really mean those
things when you were talking about NASA
or was that just a election campaign
slow
Hans uh well I'm restricted in what I
can say because we have an election
petition before the appropriate
authorities now to set the result of the
election aside uh and I can't go into
for legal reasons okay uh the case that
we will be making there but what I can
say is that uh my opponent now the
Member of Parliament uh uh and her media
allies were playing into the worst
stereotyping of the Pakistani Community
you have to know here that pakistanis
are routinely demonized and
caricatured as people who are uh
grooming young girls and forcing
marriage upon people in defiance not
only of the law but of the uh uh the
religion uh that every Pakistani in
Bradford is somehow touched by drug
dealing and uh all kinds of illicit and
vice illicit uh behavior and vice all of
that was played into as a narrative and
it was my duty to defend the community
to defend the Muslims and to defend the
pakistanis in uh in Bradford and that's
what I tried to do
then what happened if I may ask if you
were doing so much for the Pakistani
community in Bradford West especially uh
what went wrong and where why did you
lose the
elections well uh as I say we're trying
to have the result set aside um so I'm
restricted in what I can say uh but uh
certainly the result came as a shock to
us and to everyone who was there and uh
and a surprise I think to even my
opponents uh so it's too early to say
you'll have to wait for the wheels of
Justice to grind they grind exceedingly
slow but they grind exceedingly fine and
uh all will be out in due course was was
that a surprise for your opponent as
well who won the elections that's what
you're saying uh I don't know about my
opponent it was certainly a surprise to
the labor campaigners in the election
and it's a shock and a surprise to the
constituents who went to sleep uh after
casting their votes and woke up to find
a result they never in their Wildest
Dreams imagined the bookmakers had me at
uh 13 to8 on favorite that is to say for
those who don't understand these things
a nailed on red hot uh favorite to win
the exit Pole that was released at the
close of poll 10 p.m. had me holding my
seat uh the journalists began writing
that I had held my seat uh but that's
not what happened so we'll see in the
end do do you uh do you know how much
time will it take to uh come up with
these results the the verdict from the
from wherever the uh plea is there about
this C uh I don't know uh I don't know
um but our uh our petition has to be
lodged within 21 days we're Gathering
evidence uh and uh well be well within
the 21 days uh our petition will be
filed then it will have uh legal
privilege and uh anyone can report on it
uh at well okay so uh there's no precise
time you can come up with that uh no no
uh I don't um and I I don't think the
investigation needs to take particularly
long um but our petition will be lodged
within the 21 days and uh they have
notice of it the labor party has notice
of it uh and uh it's then in the hands
of the authorities how long it
takes in his entire life never ever SP a
single word in favor of
Kashmir uh when you were also concerned
about Kashmir you were very close to Y
did you ever ask him about this thing or
or no I did I did and uh the the answer
would be uh
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geopolitics G you've been supporting
putting the Palestinian side uh a lot
the Palestinians the cause of
Palestinians the Palestinians right and
why why why had you been like so
outspoken for the Palestinians any
specific reasons for that well uh when I
first became involved in the Palestinian
issue which is as long ago as 1975 so
exactly 40 years ago in the midsummer of
40 years ago
1975 uh I knew that I would be making uh
rich and Powerful enemies uh perhaps I
didn't appreciate how rich how powerful
uh perhaps I didn't appreciate how
Unfaithful uh some of those who have
obligations towards the Palestinians
would turn out to be uh but I could do
no other and I visited Lebanon in 1977 I
met president Arafat may God have mercy
upon him uh and uh he became became like
a an older brother to me and I became
very close to him I was at his bedside
when he died in Paris in the per
Military Hospital in the course of those
40 years I have
befriended uh thousands thousands of
Palestinian people and I think Millions
have appreciated my efforts so for me
it's personal as well as political uh
and uh I will never stop as long as God
gives me
breath okay so what's this attachment
with the Pakistan have you spent some
time in Karachi I
believe well I hold Pakistan's two
highest civil Awards the halali the
halali Pakistan and the halali
kadm the L for my work on the
restoration of democracy in Pakistan in
the
1980s and the former former work on
Kashmir over well over 30 years uh so uh
I have a deep attachment to Pakistan a
deep attachment to the Pakistani
Community here in
Britain uh I share many things in common
uh with them in terms of a view of the
world and so on uh but Karachi is a
special place to me I love the city very
much it's a world city an iconic City
that should be one of the citadels of
culture and of uh Prosperity but of
course it is stricken by political
violence and organized crime and the
last time I was there which was in
January of last year uh for the literary
Festival uh which was a great success uh
which I hope will continue to be so uh I
had to be fed around in a very large
fank of security forces um and that's a
terrible way to View
Karachi okay coming back to the yasat
thing and the Palestinian thing um I
would like to ask you a question you
know uh your closeness with yasat and
you you regard him very high and uh but
at the very same time you are concerned
about the Kashmir issue Bradford there
are lots of Kashmir families putting up
in breadfood as well um and they are
very much in your
constituency how
come
yasat in his entire life never ever
uttered a single word in the favor of
Kashmir uh when you were also concerned
about Kashmir you're very close to Yas
did you ever ask him about this thing or
or no I did uh I did and uh the the
answer would be uh geopolitics GE the uh
previous regimes in India were a part of
if you like an international Camp uh of
uh non-alignment and close to the Soviet
Union and Arafat was in part dependent
on that camp uh it is
regrettable uh that he did not see that
uh India's position then would change uh
and that in any case one has to speak
with principle one cannot uh accept that
my enemy's enemy is my friend because
your enemy's enemy is not necessarily
your friend and that you must speak up
for hack for justice for right uh
wherever it is being trampled upon
irrespective of it's being trampled upon
even by your own family uh so it's uh
it's a matter of great regret to me that
I could never persuade him to see that
I'm sure that in his heart he saw it but
uh as a political Statesman hemmed in by
many
enemies uh he had to take his
friendships where he could find them and
uh that's uh the way it was it never
stopped me I was
coterminous a leader of the struggle for
Palestinian rights and a figure in the
struggle for the rights of the people of
Jammu and Kashmir uh because both of
those causes were right and they
required uh me to make a stand on them
um the two cases are actually strikingly
similar almost uh to the to the month in
terms of the catastrophes that they both
suffered uh the intifada in Palestine
coincides almost exactly with the
intifada in uh occupied Kashmir and the
atrocities visited upon the occupied
people are even worse in Kashmir cons
considerably worse actually uh than than
suffered by the people in occupied
Palestine uh so these two issues which
are both issues of
postcolonialism are strikingly similar
to me and I never saw any argument for
uh for separating them uh forced the
British government to first of all
explain why they gave a British passport
and citizenship to alar Hussein the
leader of the MQM
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okay I'll I'll continue this uh
particular Topic in a bit but before I
go to my next question you were talking
about your visit to Karachi and you were
like guarded and like you were by
protected by the guards to see to roam
about in the city of Karachi and you
never liked it
uh what do you have what you come up
with like very blunt statements against
a particular organization a political
politic political party of Pakistan and
uh but uh but how do you see this thing
because there are so many hostile
intelligence outfits which are like very
much active in Pakistan and especially
in Karachi and uh how do you take that
uh thing you know
well I I was uh traveling in the
bulletproof bombproof uh car of the then
president of Pakistan and I was
surrounded by this fank of armed uh
Troopers very large number of them so I
wasn't able to do as much roaming around
as I have done in the past in the city
and political violence in the city is of
course not unique to the MQM to which I
shall turn in just a moment uh the
presence of al-Qaeda in Pakistan uh the
presence of the so-called Pakistan
Taliban uh were exploding uh bombs in uh
cities nearby uh or in the same uh
Province uh whilst I was there there was
an atrocity against Shia mosque I think
uh certainly the Shia community in qua
uh at uh at the same time as I was there
but the reason for regarding me
particularly was because for 10 long
years I have been trying to uh force the
British government to first of all
explain why they gave a British passport
and citizenship to Ala Hussein the
leader of the MQM and more importantly
why they were allowing him to coordinate
political violence from London after all
was supposedly in the era of uh
anti-terrorism the war on terrorism yet
terrorism was being is being coordinated
from London by the leader of the MQM by
a British citizen so in that sense I was
not interfering in Pakistan's Internal
Affairs this is a British internal
Affair and uh the British government
have singularly failed to explain why
this is being allowed to continue and
therefore
speculation about their dark motives uh
has continued I have never received a
proper answer to any of these questions
of course I'm no longer in Parliament
I'll no longer be able to pursue it but
uh it's now a police matter uh and uh
the police are uh closing in uh on ala
Hussein uh this much I
know uh one last comment on your uh this
thing that which I asked earlier and
that was that the Hostile countries
which are hostile towards
Pakistan their intelligence outfits are
very much active in Pakistan especially
in
Karachi what do you have to say about
this last sentence please well I I have
no doubt that uh that neighboring
countries with hostile intent uh have
their fingerprints on many of the
internal problems suffered in Pakistan
and by pakistanis I don't believe
they're the principal reason uh they act
on pre-existing tensions and divisions
and conflicts uh but they do act uh and
of course uh there are some who are more
than ready to cooperate with them uh
receive receive weapons from them
receive uh money from them receive uh
other media and technological support
from them uh of that no
doubt George uh I really appreciate you
taking out time for me coming on my show
not all this is the first interview I've
given since losing my seat so uh it's
been nice to talk to you thanks for the
opportunity play is all mine you're
always welcome on my show thank you very
much once again George
towards and especially towards the
Muslim Community in
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