The Spectator wins defamation claim brought by Muslim activist who criticised Hindus

TOI correspondent from London: The Spectator magazine and Douglas Murray have won a defamation case brought by a Muslim online influencer who stirred up trouble during the 2022 Leicester riots.Mohammed Hijab, a YouTuber with 1.3 million followers, whose real name is Mohammed Hegab, claimed that an article in the Spectator about the riots, titled “Leicester and the downside with diversity” and published in Sept 2022, defamed him.The author, Murray, wrote Hijab was a “a street agitator” who “cropped up in Leicester to whip up his followers”. He wrote: “Among other things he (Hijab) told them that Hindus are ridiculous people, not least because of their belief in reincarnation.”Hijab sued for defamation claiming he lost thousands of pounds in fees as a result of the article.But in a judgment handed down on Tuesday in the high court, Justice Johnson found that what Murray wrote about Hijab is “substantially true, and it is not materially inaccurate”.Hijab’s claim was that his comments were not about Hindus but “the Hindutva” in Leicester which, Hijab, claimed “promotes conspiracy theories, including that Muslim men conspire to convert Hindu women to Islam”.Johnson wrote: “When asked to name anyone in the world who subscribed to the Hindutva ideology but who was not Hindu [Hijab] was able to give only one name: Benjamin Netanyahu.”He also said Hijab “lied on significant issues, with the consequence that his evidence, overall, is worthless”.Johnson pointed out a video of Hijab’s speech in Leicester shows him, “far more vividly than is conveyed by the words of the article, directly whipping up a large group of masked men and ridiculing Hinduism”.