You couldn't make it up! Oh, wait...

STOP PRESS

Those muzzies are having sex with dead people!

At least that's what you might believe if you took all news at face value and have already decided that 'those Arab are up to summat'.

Today the far right Casuals United blog is leading with 'Islamists add necrophilia to their list of vices' – echoing a report they obviously read on the Daily Mail website, who in turn picked it up from Al Arabyira, who had spun their story from part of an opinion piece by Amro Abdul Samea in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram. All the articles claim that the Egyptian parlaiment is about to pass a law allowing men to have sex with their wives up to six hours after death.

Unsurprisingly this 'news' turns out to be almost entirely made up. No such law has been proposed or stands any chance of ending up on the books. Samea was one of deposed dictator Mubarak's biggest fans and probably invented the prospect of the law in an attempt to stir up fear of the democratically elected government that replaced him. On the face of it he's been pretty successful.

While even the Daily Mail is now admitting the new law has “been branded a 'complete nonsense'” the damage is already done. As a result of their (and every other news outlet that published a version of the non-story) complete disregard for fact checking, in the EDL's parallel universe 'Muslims have sex with dead people'.

In a 24hr news world, where if you take a few minutes more than the competition to get your story online you can lose hundreds of thousands of hits, the pressures on mainstream journalists can be immense. However slipshod reporting is inflammatory and irresponsible. This story will now no doubt be added to a long list of 'FACTS!' that are quoted every time reactionary opinions are questioned.

For a detailed demolition of the claims in the Christian Science Monitor

BATTLE OF CHURCH ST 2?

Similarly the EDL and friends are now promising to return to Brighton on 2nd June, largely on the back of The Argus reporting that “a ten-year-old girl taking part in the march was hit on the head” last weekend. The 'fact' that anti-fascists bottled hundreds of women and children has now become the rallying call for a small but dangerous group of meat-heads to return to the town that so thoroughly embarrassed them.

Concocted stories and half truths are the bread and butter of the far right – without a genuine threat an invented one is needed to attract people to their cause. While in the long term a responsible media and a more questioning populous may prevent the rise of fascism. Today the best we can hope for is an effective grass roots militant response to send them packing.