Banned from Islam

oceanclub

It seems to be there is a huge conflict of interest where a mod can ban people for legitimate criticism of their posts.

The moderator irishconvert on the Islam board posted an article advertising the visit of a Saudi Arabian cleric, Abdul Rahman Ibn Abdul Aziz as-Sudais:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Al-Sudais

I calmly followed up pointing out that according to legitimate sources, such as the Guardian and the BBC, this man has preached anti-Semitic and other bigoted sermons, comparing Jews and Christians to pigs. First of all, irishconvert tried to argue that none of these sources could be trusted. Then when I pointed out that even the advisor to the Saudi Crown Prince's advisor has reprimanded as-Sudais for his bigotry, irishconvert changed tactic and then claimed that as an atheist (something I've never hidden on the Islam forum and have explicitly mentioned), I obviously have an ulterior "motive".

Now, in this case, I had no idea if I was responding to (a) irishconvert the poster or (b) irishconvert the moderator. They then send me a PM, whereupon I asked on the forum which hat they were sending the PM under. Next thing I know, I'm banned.

Now, I've posted many times in the Islam forum before - feel free to check my backlog of posts - and I've always been polite and calm, supportive of moderate Islam and Muslims (going as far as to ringing the editor of Metro Eireann in order to try to get them to have a moderate Muslim columnist as a balance to the Wahabist Liam Egan) while being critical of the concept of Wahabist bigotry.

Now, if irishconvert feels I should be banned from the forum, fine, but I feel that there is a conflict of interest where a moderator uses the banning mechanism to avoid discussion of posts that they have put up.

P.

Tom Dunne

Hey,

could I ask that you take this through the Dispute Resolution Procedure, link in my signature?

I would like to get the opinion of the CMods on this matter as impartial observers.

oceanclub

Will do, ta.

P.