Press Release
What are You Doing Here? Are You a Journalist?
(Translated)

I wonder, who is the worst type of journalist in your view? Is it the journalist who is well known for his hypocrisy and his lies against people for a period of three years who then publishes information that has no basis of truth? Or the journalist that extrapolates the information that only affirms his viewpoint? Whilst keeping away from delving deeply into the philosophy of the subject area and in order to keep the matter simple we say: That the first has diminished his own worth when he published the lies. As for the second, then he had an opportunity to be a trustworthy journalist but he chose what suited him from the news without examining which of the news was authentic and which was not authentic. As an example of these types of journalists: The liar Martin Zekhrs in contrast to the opportunist Andreas Koinhoven.

A while ago the journalist Martin Zekhrs published a book under the title: “I was one of them; three years undercover as a Muslim”. And this book Martin relates his experiences with the Islamic organisations, Masaajid and individuals, whilst he dedicated a large portion of his book to his experience with “members” of Hizb ut Tahrir.

As the title alludes to, the writer pretended to be a Muslim for three years and so he stayed within one of the districts of the city of The Hague which is called Transval. During that time, he infiltrated the “Closed off” Muslim community and in his determination to deceive the Muslim community and to gain the trust of their sons, the one called Martin kept his beard and even memorised some of the parts of the Book of Allah by heart just as he regularly attended the Fajr prayer in the Masjid.

The results of his research that he wrote in his book were expected and not strange. He concludes that the Muslim community represents an expression of closed collective group which represents a threat upon the society in Holland and that the district Transval is similar to the district Mulin Bik in Belgium. It is worth mentioning that the opinion of this journalist in respect to the Muslims after this secret adventure of his does not differ with his opinion prior to it. It was the same opinion and that was because he had only been looking for information to affirm his own viewpoint and stance in regards to the Muslims and nothing else.

As for the reality of secret or undercover journalism then this is a custom resorted to in cases of strong suspicions about a particular matter where it is not possible to gather the authentic information about it except by being undercover. Due to that, and according to the logic of Martin, who described the Muslim community as being closed and that he does not know what is circulating in the heads of the sons of the community, then the undercover route is what he justified.

The bias and desire of the journalist Martin in regards to proving his doubts related to the Muslim community did not just cost him three years of his life but rather this desire has cost him his believability and objectivity as a journalist. This can be observed in his twisted overtones and his distance within the study from relationships and his fabricated facts related to the Muslim community, including what he said about Hizb ut Tahrir.

So for example, Martin wrote a story of a youth who attended a meeting organised by Hizb ut Tahrir and then how this youth started to prepare himself for Jihaad. By mentioning this he attempting to give a deceptive image of Hizb ut Tahrir, in that it works in a secret way to recruit youth and then urges them to join the battle field. After examining this, it became clear that this youth had embraced Islam recently and had not attended except one talk of Hizb ut Tahrir before leaving Holland to go to one of the states of South America looking for work and that he had not gone anywhere to fight.

For this reason, in the beginning, we had preferred not to respond to his so-called book and that is because the one who prefers lies and hypocrisy over the truth and trust does not deserve to be responded to nor to be dealt with seriously. What can you say to a person who claims that “the other” has a hidden agenda whilst at the same time he employs deception and trickery against others for a period of three years for no other reason except that he himself has a hidden agenda?!

With that, we hope that the racist results that this journalist reached in respect to the Muslim community will be taken seriously from those of sound rational minds and intellect within Holland. That is because there are, unfortunately, opportunists who welcomed the conclusions that Martin arrived at and held on to them as an evidence, that does not accept any discussion, against the Muslim community. One of these is the journalist Andreas Koinhoven who works for the NRC news agency. That is because in an article written by him under the heading: “What are you doing here? Are you Muslim?” Andreas poured praise upon his colleague Martin and then proceeded upon the same path and made use of incorrect information just as Martin had done. He had the same position towards those who go for Jihaad outside of Holland and he attempted to connect Hizb ut Tahrir with the use of violence, without any evidence or proof, whilst he reminded of the attempt of the Dutch government to ban the Hizb, in a dirty underhanded manner.

Then he wrote stating that the journalists and scholars had been unable to attend previous meetings of Hizb ut Tahrir and that was because the Hizb did not give them permission for that, alluding to the possibility of Hizb ut Tahrir having a hidden agenda. In comment to that we say that perhaps this is what the western values system allows and particularly when a person like Martin is praised because of his undercover work and his deception to the people. However, Islam does not approve of such a matter and it has no existence within the culture of Hizb ut Tahrir. That is because its message is clear for anyone possessing a heart or who listens when he is a witnessing. It appears that it is better now and from now on to a keep distance from journalists like Martin and those like him in respect to meeting us and that is due to their determination to lie and their opportunistic natures.

And for that reason, the question of suspicion directed by this journalist toward the Muslim community which was: “What are you doing here? Are you Muslim”. Then this a question is for himself that gives him justification whilst what came in the book confirms the correctness of their position (i.e. the Muslims) even though Andreas remains incapable of understanding the reason!

 Okay Pala
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir
in The Netherlands