Opponents of plans to build a giant mosque in London have today launched a campaign information website, www.MegaMosqueNoThanks.com, to "counter misinformation and spin".
The Christian Peoples Alliance has already challenged Newham's Mayor Sir Robin Wales to admit that the group behind the Olympic mega-mosque plans, the Tablighi Jamaat, are operating a small temporary mosque on the site without planning permission.
At a 29 October meeting of Newham Council, the Mayor's adviser on Regeneration Cllr Conor McAuley led members and media to believe that the current small temporary mosque on site had received retrospective temporary planning permission. It emerged later, however, that permission had expired twelve months ago.
At the forthcoming Council meeting on Monday 3 December, Cllr Alan Craig, leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance group on Newham Council, will call on the Mayor to retract his colleague's previous statement and instead publicly confirm that the site is currently being used by Tablighi Jamaat illegally, without any planning permission at all.
"Misinformation from Tablighi Jamaat, from their PR agency Indigo Public Affairs and from the Mayor's colleague, all illustrate vividly why a group of us called Newham Concern have now found it necessary to launch a campaign website MegaMosqueNoThanks.com," said Cllr Craig.
"We want to get the facts and truth out there so that people can see why this mosque should not be built. The people of Newham and the wider community need to be properly informed."
Cllr Craig was recently the subject of a death threat video on YouTube, that depicted the Christian campaigner with his wife and two daughters, aged five and six, in a mock obituary entitled 'In memory of Councillor Alan Craig'. The video is believed to be in retaliation for his outspoken opposition to the mosque plans.
He has also voiced concern over the controversial group behind the mosque proposals, the Tablighi Jamaat, which the FBI and MI5 suspect has ties to al-Qaeda and has already been linked to two of the July 7 suicide bombers, as well as jailed shoe bomber Richard Reid.
"Tablighi Jamaat is a global, powerful, fundamentalist but secretive Islamic sect from South Asia," continued Craig, warning that the group's "secrecy", the Mayor's "complicity" and their use of PR agency Indigo to improve their public image "all create a potent cocktail of misinformation and half-truth".
"Our campaign aims to expose their propaganda and to highlight the real facts and evidence so that people can make up their own minds," he said. "As we develop the website, we intend that it will become a useful source of reliable information about the sect and their project."
