The well blog Harry's Place political blog reported about Mohammad Sawalha, President of the British Muslim Initiative, speaking to Al Jazeera in Arabic about his demonstration against last Sunday's celebration of the foundation of the State of Israel.

They reported that he had used the 'word' evil when referring to Jews. The British Muslim Initiative have taken offence and contend that there was a mistranslation of the word 'lobby'.

Anyway all hell seems to be breaking loose over what is quite a seriously worrying organisation.

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The news that blog Harry's Place is facing legal action from Mohammed Sawalha of the British Muslim Initiative was, in some ways, unsurprising. Harry's Place has been made its name criticising groups such as the British Muslim Initiative, which its various contributors see as political organisations masquerading as ‘community groups'. Some kind of confrontation was inevitable, sooner or later.

Mr Sawalha's complaint stems from an article posted on 2 July, in which Harry's Place blogger David T alleged that Sawalha had referred to Jews as ‘evil' in response to a pro-Israel rally in London. David T's source was an Al Jazeera article in Arabic. Sawalha claims that any suggestion that he would use such wording undermines his community work.

David T had been alerted to the article by a Harry's Place reader, who had spotted the story and run the text through Google Translate (the programmed delivered the phrase ‘dangerous Jew'. The blogger says he then ran it past Arabic speakers, who told him that the word translated by Google as ‘dangerous' was ‘al wabil' — ‘evil' or ‘baleful'. However, when readers clicked on the link to the Al Jazeera article, they found the word ‘al lawbi' — i.e. ‘lobby'. A heated debate on the translation ensued.

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