Miqdaad Versi v Mohamed Husain (Aka ED Husain)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lewis |
| Judgment Date | 03 March 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] EWHC 482 (KB) |
| Court | King's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: QB-2021-004234 |
[2023] EWHC 482 (KB)
HIS HONOUR JUDGE Lewis
(Sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court)
Case No: QB-2021-004234
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mark Henderson (instructed by Rahman Lowe Solicitors) for the Claimant
Gervase de Wilde (instructed by Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 17 November 2022
Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30am on [date] by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.
HIS HONOUR JUDGE Lewis
The claimant is the former director of media monitoring at the Muslim Council of Britain and describes himself as a campaigner in his own right against Islamophobia, particularly with regards to the representation of Muslims.
The defendant is an author, academic and an adviser to western governments on Islamist extremism, terrorism and national security.
The claimant has sued the defendant for libel in respect of a tweet posted by the defendant on 21 November 2020 (“the Tweet”).
The claimant issued proceedings on 17 November 2021, a few days before the expiry of the limitation period. He seeks damages of at least £25,000 and an injunction preventing republication of the words complained of, or similar words defamatory of the claimant.
On 28 April 2022, Nicklin J directed that there be a trial of the following preliminary issues pursuant to CPR 3.1(2)(i) and (j) and CPR PD 53B para 6: (i) the natural and ordinary meaning of the statement complained of; (ii) whether the statement complained of is (or includes) a statement of fact or opinion; and (iii) whether the statement is defamatory of the claimant at common law.
The Tweet
The Tweet was a “quote tweet” in which the defendant republished an earlier tweet of the claimant, with his own comment added.
A copy of the Tweet as it would have appeared to readers is set out in the schedule to this judgment. The text was as follows:
“Pipe down, you
pro-Hamas
pro-Iran
pro-gender discrimination
pro-blasphemy laws
pro-secretarian
anti-Western
‘Representative’ of an Islamist outfit.
[Embedded tweet in box] Miqdaad Versi – 1h
Why does Fraser Nelson – a man who as editor is accountable for so much anti-Muslim hate propagated in the Spectator – think it is appropriate to explain Islamophobia to a Muslim woman?…
Show this thread”
The meanings proposed by each party
The claimant says the natural and ordinary meaning of the Tweet was that:
“the claimant is an Islamist who supports a violent, fundamentalist, separatist and repressive agenda aimed at imposing Islam on society by force. He is a terrorist sympathiser and a sectarian bigot who endorses hatred and violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims. He is intolerant of other religions and other strands of Islamic belief, including of mainstream Muslims, and supports the subjugation of women. His beliefs are incompatible with modern western democratic values, and he promotes enemies of the west.”
The claimant says that there was no qualification to the allegations made, which were presented as statements of fact. He says the meaning is defamatory at common law.
The defendant says the natural and ordinary meaning, read in context, was that:
“(i) the claimant advocates for the interests of an Islamist organisation, and has expressed views which are supportive of Hamas, Iran, gender discrimination, blasphemy laws, sectarianism, and which are anti-Western; and
(ii) that such advocacy and views, as expressed by the claimant, are objectionable and undermine the legitimacy of the claimant's own participation in public debate.”
The defendant says that the words underlined are an expression of opinion, with those parts that are not underlined being statements of fact. He denies that the meaning is defamatory at common law.
In response to the defendant's pleaded meaning, the claimant agrees that the Tweet necessarily conveys, as a statement of fact, that the claimant has expressed views which are supportive of Hamas, Iran, gender discrimination, blasphemy laws, sectarianism, and which are anti-Western. The claimant says that this in itself is defamatory at common law, as is the allegation that he is an Islamist, particularly when read in the context of the other factual statements made.
Other material
There is a dispute between the parties about the scope of the material that this court should consider as “context” when assessing meaning. The relevant legal principles were summarised by Nicklin J in Riley v Murray [2020] EWHC 977 (QB) at [16]:
“[16] … the following material can be taken into account when assessing the natural and ordinary meaning of a publication:
i) matters of common knowledge: facts so well known that, for practical purposes, everybody knows them;
ii) matters that are to be treated as part of the publication: although not set out in the publication itself, material that the ordinary reasonable reader would have read (for example, a second article in a newspaper to which express reference is made in the first or hyperlinks); and
iii) matters of directly available context to a publication: this has a particular application where the statement complained of appears as part of a series of publications – e.g. postings on social media, which may appear alongside other postings, principally in the context of discussions.
[17] The fundamental principle is that it is impermissible to seek to rely on material, as “context”, which could not reasonably be expected to be known (or read) by all the publishees. To do so is to “erode the rather important and principled distinction between natural and ordinary meanings and innuendos”: Monroe v Hopkins [40]. When I considered this principle very recently, I explained that the distinction was between “material that would have been known (or read) by all readers and material that would have been known (or read) by only some of them. The former is legitimately admissible as context in determining the natural and ordinary meaning; the latter is relevant only to an innuendo meaning (if relied upon)” (emphasis in original): Hijazi v Yaxley-Lennon [2020] EWHC 934 (QB) [14].”
In the earlier case of Monroe v Hopkins [2017] EWHC 433 (QB), Warby J (as he then was) had considered the extent to which external material should be considered as directly available context when the case involves a publication on Twitter. Warby J said:
“[38] … This is perhaps less straightforward. I would conclude that a matter can be treated as part of the context in which an offending tweet if it is on Twitter and sufficiently closely connected in time, content, or otherwise that it is likely to have been in the hypothetical reader's view, or in their mind, at the time they read the words complained of….
[39] I would include as context parts of a wider Twitter conversation in which the offending tweet appeared, and which the representative hypothetical ordinary reader is likely to have read. This would clearly include an earlier tweet or reply which was available to view on the same page as the offending material. It could include earlier material, if sufficiently closely connected. But it is not necessarily the case that it would include tweets from days beforehand. The nature of the medium is such that these disappear from view quite swiftly, for regular users….”
The Tweet was a “quote tweet”, and it included part of a tweet sent by the claimant about Fraser Nelson at 8.38pm on 21 November. The full tweet read as follows:
“Why does Fraser Nelson – a man who as editor is accountable for so much anti-Muslim hate propagated in the Spectator – think it is appropriate to explain Islamophobia to a Muslim woman?
And why would citing a pro-Saudi pro-Netanyahu Person who works with Richard Kemp, help? [person shrugging emoji]”
The claimant's 8.38pm tweet was itself a quote tweet, embedding and responding to a tweet sent by Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, at 11.21am on 21 November 2020:
“Macron's speech was defending, not attacking, Islam. It is an important point, explained by Ed Hussain [the defendant] here [Link to Spectator article]
Mr Nelson's tweet was also a quote tweet, in which was embedded a tweet sent by Zarah Sultana MP at 2.42pm on 20 November 2020:
“From the dissolution of France's largest anti-Islamophobia NGO to its use of prejudicial & divisive language, I share the concerns of human rights defenders about the frightening direction of President Macron's government.
We must condemn Islamophobia & all forms of racism.”
The claimant has produced two printouts of a twitter thread that the claimant has described as “the thread that would appear” if a reader clicked on the Tweet (“the Thread”). The first printout shows what the reader would have seen without clicking on further links, whereas the second printout shows the text that the reader would see if he or she were to click on each message contained within the Thread.
The Thread includes three tweets by the claimant sent at 8.52pm, 8.58pm and 9pm that evening (“The Three Tweets”). All three were sent on the same thread:
a. The tweet at 8.52pm said “Citing fringe figures within Muslim communities who are pro-Netenyahu, who do propaganda for the Saudi regime & who pal around people like Richard Kemp, really isn't as impressive as you think.”. The tweet included an “image collage”, comprising (i) a tweet from the Jewish Chronicle promoting an article by the defendant; (ii) a tweet by the defendant from September 2020 in support of #SaudiNationalDay; and (iii) an advert for an event at which the defendant and Colonel Richard Kemp would be discussing “new alliances for a new...
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