“On Thursday July 28th, the Evening Standard published an article entitled ‘Terror and hatred for sale in the heart of capital’. In the article, Standard writer Robert Mendick told of how an Islamic bookshop called Dar Al Taqwa sold books and DVDs ‘advocating terrorism’ and ‘urging Muslims to wage a holy war by arming themselves with bombs and guns’. They printed a picture of the shop, the address of the shop and even the shop’s phone number. You can probably guess what happened next. The bookshop employees were immediately subject to a rigorous campaign of abusive phone calls and personal threats.
“Lawyers for the El-Atar family, backed by the Mayor of London, are working to clear the family’s name and are insisting on a public apology and an article of equal length setting the record straight from the Evening Standard. Their legal advisor said: ‘Everyone who works at Dar Al Taqwa is completely disgusted by and opposed to acts of terrorism, and having alleged the contrary in its article, the paper should have the decency and integrity to publicly admit that it has gone too far’.”