UK: Suicide bomber novel censored because of Islamic sensitivities

From the Telegraph:

Previous winner of Muslim Writers Award "Treated as second coming of Salman Rushdie" because subject matter was "unpalatable' to the "puritan mindset" of the you-know-who's. (and it's not the scientologists, kyros! LOL)

This year's awards attracted over 10,000 submissions and guests of honour at the ceremony included the singer Jermaine Jackson and Baroness Warsi, the shadow minister for community cohesion.

Imran Akram, chief executive of the 2008 awards, said: "Dr Malik's submission was certainly one of the best we received in 2008, and was rightly short-listed along with four other unpublished novelists.

"Following investigation, it is clear that his work was not submitted to the judges as it should have been." Saying he was still investigating the matter, Mr Akram stressed he had "great respect" for Dr Malik's writing. He said: "The Muslim Writers Awards project does not condone censorship, as we do not believe in stifling individuals' right to artistic self-expression."

Evidently somebody there does.

The Muslim Writers respond over at al-Guardian, of course. It was all a clerical error. it wasn't because of the child abusing mosque teacher, the rape of a Muslim girl and the suicide bomber. Really. (Fun fact: one of this year's judges is also a Guardian reporter.)

Everything was all hunky-dory before the glittering event. What happened?

A few more tidbits bout the Muslim Writer's Awards "when the world brings you to your knees, you're in the perfect position to pray." They're based in Birmingham and while they may have a quote from Prince Charle's stupefyingly dhimmi speech on Islam, oddly enough they have not updated their website with the latest winners. In fact their most current website is nothing but an advert for next years contest.