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Op-Ed video: No one cares when Muslims have their bank accounts closed

British Muslims were the first to suffer from bank account closures, but nobody protested. When the same thing happens to Nigel Farage, it's close to a national scandal, argues Peter Oborne

It's a well-known fact that many leading British Muslim civil society activists and charities have had their bank accounts closed with little or no explanation.

Victims have included the political activist Anas Altikriti and his family, the Finsbury Park Mosque, the writer Azzam Tamimi, and many others. 

Charities have also been badly hit.

But where's the condemnation?

Earlier this month, the closure of Nigel Farage's bank account was widely covered in the media, with the high net-worth private bank Coutts apologising to the Brexit campaigner for closing his account over his political views.

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"Quite a lot of Palestinian-linked organisations have been stripped of their bank accounts. Each one is an outrage, in the same way that Nigel Farage's story is an outrage, but not one [of these cases] was followed up by the mainstream media," Middle East Eye columnist Peter Oborne said.

"It makes this a perfect case study in the structural Islamophobia of the British media."

Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in both 2022 and 2017, and was also named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Drum Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He was also named as British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His latest book is The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam, published in May by Simon & Schuster. His previous books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism.
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