19 Facts About Mo Ansar

Mohammed "Mo" Ansar is a British political and social commentator.

Mo Ansar was an employee of Lloyds Banking Group, until he was suspended in 2003 for unsatisfactory work and falsification of assets.

Mo Ansar then sued the bank for racial discrimination, but the tribunal concluded that he had not been discriminated against and his problems had resulted from his own unwillingness to listen to guidance from his female managers.

In 2010, whilst chair of the Hampshire Independent Equality Forum Steering Group, Mo Ansar coordinated the Southampton Flood Relief Campaign for victims of the 2010 Pakistan Floods and participated in a Question Time-style event in a Hampshire school.

In March 2012, Mo Ansar appeared at Cambridge Science Festival on a panel convened by comedian and Guest Director Robin Ince on "whether religion and science can coexist in harmony".

In October 2013, Mo Ansar gave an interfaith talk entitled Facing Secularism Together for the annual Lovell Lecture at Winchester Cathedral.

In November 2015, Mo Ansar led the Southampton University Students Union Islamic Society event Open Muslim Prayers as part of the annual Inter Faith Week "organised by the University of Southampton's Chaplaincy and the Parkes Institute to promote diversity, celebration, and understanding".

Mo Ansar wrote an article for The Guardian which was published shortly before the BBC documentary Quitting the English Defence League: When Tommy Met Mo aired.

In December 2012, Mo Ansar was invited to participate in a discussion with Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner and Giles Fraser for an article in the Christmas Issue guest co-edited by Robin Ince New Statesman.

On 29 October 2013, as part of the follow-up to the broadcast of the BBC documentary When Tommy Met Mo, Mo Ansar was questioned on the BBC politics programme The Daily Politics about his Twitter debate with Tom Holland over slavery in antiquity, during which he had tweeted "If slaves are treated justly with no oppression whatsoever, who could possibly object, Tom".

In May 2014, Mo Ansar was criticised by journalists including radio presenter, Iain Dale, journalist Nick Cohen, journalist Jamie Bartlett and author, Jeremy Duns regarding his views and his conduct.

Bartlett wrote that Mo Ansar's "language of tolerance and moderation" belied his stance on homophobia and amputation of limbs in Islamic states and that he had fabricated claims about his professional experience, including a false claim that he was a lawyer.

Mo Ansar had said it was "potentially unlawful for any of us to pull out when coerced to discriminate".

Mo Ansar considers Ahmadi Muslims as outside the religion of Islam.

In February 2013, Mo Ansar gave a talk to the Islamic Society of the University of York on Islam in Britain and the Muslim Civil Rights Crisis.

Mo Ansar opened his talk with the claim that Muslims from Africa had colonised the pre-Columbian Americas: "trading and intermarrying with Iroquois and Algonquin Indians".

Mo Ansar is reported as having worked with the British government on the counter-extremism PREVENT programme.

Mo Ansar has subsequently become an ardent critic of both PREVENT and the government's counter-extremism policy.

On 17 October 2013, several British Muslims, including Mo Ansar, claimed that they were "warned that they could be targeted".