Clarification over Rochdale Turkey arrests
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
On 4th April 2015, Abul Taher, a reporter with the Mail on Sunday newspaper contacted Dr Abdul Wahid (Chairman of Hizb ut-Tahrir's UK Executive) saying he was running a story about the family of nine from Rochdale who were recently arrested in Turkey. He raised a speculation that Waheed Ahmed, 21; Mahboob Yasin, 22 and Habib Yasin, 24 - were members of Hizb ut-Tahrir or have links to Hizb ut-Tahrir.
After checking, Dr Abdul Wahid responded that they were not members of Hizb ut-Tahrir and did not have any links with Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Despite this clear reply the reporter came back saying: ‘We are running a story saying they are members of Hizb ut-Tahrir. What would your response to that be?'
Dr Abdul Wahid responded: ‘My response would be that is false, inaccurate and poor journalism.'
Subsequently, the Mail online did publish an article about this on 5th April 2015 although it seems no reporter was willing to put their name to it since it was published by a ‘Mail on Sunday Reporter'.
Asked about this article Dr Abdul Wahid said: ‘This is a non-story. It is frankly amazing that people are reporting what amounts to hearsay'.
[Source: The Times]