Amir Butler
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Amir Butler is an author, executive director of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee (AMPAC) and frequent commentator on social and political issues. Born in the United Kingdom, he currently lives in Melbourne, Australia where he writes regularly for such publications as The Age, Herald Sun, Antiwar.com, Japan Times, Asia Times, and Jakarta Post.
In 2002, Butler founded an internet-based web magazine called ATrueWord.com with Ismail Royer and Shibli Zaman. Royer, former communications specialist with CAIR and director of communications for the Muslim American Society, would later be arrested and jailed on charges of aiding the Kashmiri seperatist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Butler has frequently attracted criticism for his frequent and spirited defences of Wahhabism and Islamic fundamentalism. Despite that, Butler often offers a contrarian and politically conservative point of view in his writings. In recent months, he has drawn fire from his own community and praise from the conservative establishment in Australia for his lone opposition to the introduction of anti-Vilification and hate speech legislation in Victoria.
In September 2002, Butler was at the centre of controversy after he discovered instances of plagiarism and academic dishonesty in the writings of a prominent columnist at The Australian newspaper. The journalist had misrepresented a number of European academics to give the impression that they supported her own views on rape being a rite of passage for young Muslim men in Europe. Butler contacted each of the academics referenced in her article and confirmed they had been misrepresented. The allegations were then passed to the ABC's Media Watch program who challenged the journalist and then raised the issue on national television. As a result, the journalist was described by Mark Latham, leader of the Australian Labor Party as a "skanky hoe" who would die in a ditch for the ruling Liberal Party.
External links
- AmirButler.com (http://www.amirbutler.com)
- ABC Media Watch report (http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/muslim.htm)
- Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee (http://www.muslimaffairs.com.au)
- AntiWar.com column (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/butler.php)
- A True Word column (http://www.atrueword.com/index.php/article/author/view/2/)
- Why I have changed my mind of vilification laws (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/03/1086203561682.html?from=moreStories&oneclick=true)
- Amir Butler at Iviews.com (http://www.iviews.com/Articles/action.lasso.asp?-Search=search&-database=Services&-Table=Magazine&-noresultserror=error.asp&-Response=search.asp&-MaxRecords=10&-SortField=Pdate&-SortOrder=Descending&-op=eq&PFlag=X&-op=cn&S=V&-op=cn&search=amir+butler&-Search.x=0&-Search.y=0)