Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Azad Ali

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was speedy keep. Per WP:SKCRIT#1. The nominator has withdrawn their nomination and there are no other arguments for deletion. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:49, 5 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Azad Ali[edit]

Azad Ali (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Delete per WP:BLPPRIVACY and WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE. The article was created by a banned user with a negative view and guilt-by-association, and has been the subject of back and forth edit wars, legal threats and now is basically just referenced to primary sources. The last editor may be the subject or a very close friend as he knows about his school days, but still the section on early life looks odd and should be removed under BLP (his parents ran a sweat shop? Him going to the same school as the Krays half a century later is guilt by association too). Really the only claim to notability of this person is being the subject of numerous negative articles and documentaries by a journalist. These were published in The Daily Telegraph, which is a reliable source, but the new revision of the article has refutations of the allegations which are published by MEND, the subject's own organisation. This is a BLP headache. Add to this that the subject has lost a libel case against another newspaper for these allegations. [1] There is an ongoing legal challenge about an article in The Times last year. [2] While a subject being controversial is not a reason to delete an article, this article fails in notability as there are not enough reliable third-party sources on the subject. This is merely a battlefield article on somebody who is not notable. Anarcho-authoritarian (talk) 06:21, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The only published source I can find on the subject comes [3] here in a book by Nigel Copsey. Copsey is a professor of History, specialising in fascism and anti-fascism. [4] The one mention in this one book says that Ali held a role for the Islamic Forum of Europe, an offshoot of Jamaat-e-Islami, but that is still a) technically guilt by association, and b) not at all enough to guarantee notability. Anarcho-authoritarian (talk) 06:38, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. MT TrainTalk 07:05, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions. MT TrainTalk 07:05, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. MT TrainTalk 07:05, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - news coverage of the subject who has been covered in depth by reputable sources, passes SIGCOV. Deletion is not cleanup, if there are problems with NPOV in the article they should be fixed.Icewhiz (talk) 08:47, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Apparently all of those reputable sources were tabloid attacks, as they've all been deleted and not restored. Anarcho-authoritarian (talk) 17:19, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • If there is a COI situation here then take it to the Conflict of Interest board. Investigative journalism by the Telegraph and others is not a tabloid attack.Icewhiz (talk) 18:57, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Nom's assertion that Azad Ali is NOTPUBLICFIGURE is frankly surreal in light of the fact that Ali has been a well-known and very public advocate for various causes in Britain for many years; he has even been Chair of the quasi-official Muslim Safety Forum. This is what a PUBLICFIGURE looks like. Article could use improvement (what else is new), and contains a number of unreliable and primary sources, but it also has many WP:RS], and many more are available in searches. Keep as per WP:SIGCOV.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:45, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • All of the published sources get removed as racist/biased/libelous, so there's no point even trying to improve this. Anarcho-authoritarian (talk) 17:19, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT is not a valid argument for deletion. If the article is biased or inaccurate, it can be edited for NPOV, but The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and a long list of list of major media in the U.S., Canada, and other countries have WP:INDEPTH coverage of Ali. Coverage is readily available in a new archive search (more efficient to use keywords like London , Muslim Safety Forum, and the other organizations he was part of since his is a somewhat common name). And be aware that most of his public activity took place a decade or so ago, making news archive searches more efficient than gNews. But coverage of his political (campaigning for Ken Livingstone in 2010) and civic activities that more than meets WP:SIGCOV. E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:33, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am withdrawing this nomination. Both of these contributors have highlighted that there is reliable coverage of this person which shouldn't have been removed. As there is a history of COI/legal threats in the page history I will keep an eye out for that in the future. Anarcho-authoritarian (talk) 20:16, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.