Dilpazier Aslam (born 1978 in Yorkshire) is a former trainee journalist with The Guardian. He came to public attention in July 2005 when he lost his position with the newspaper after being named as a member of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. The Guardian was alerted to Aslam's membership in the group by bloggers who read Aslam's 'Comment' op-ed article on the 7 July London bombings. Entitled "We Rock the Boat," the 13 July article discussed the attitudes of young British Muslims and how their increasing anger over perceived injustices contrasted with their elders' silence. Before joining The Guardian, Aslam had written three articles for Khilafah.com, a website closely associated with Hizb ut-Tahrir, and was once called its Middle Eastern correspondent. The newspaper stated that after publication of "We Rock the Boat," it found an article on Khalifah.com, that appeared to be an "incitement of violence against Jews." Aslam told Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian's editor, that he personally rejected anti-Semitism, would not leave Hizb ut-Tahrir, and did not consider Khilafah.com anti-Semitic. Rusbridger and other executives decided that membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir was not compatible with membership in the trainee scheme. Early career Aslam studied journalism at Sheffield University with the help of a bursary from the Sheffield Star. Previously he had been a journalistic trainee at the Matlock Mercury in 2004, and won the National Union of Journalists George Viner award for promising black journalists in 2003. Controversy Aslam wrote or co-wrote a number of news articles on the London bombings. Then, in a 13 July 2005 opinion piece entitled "We Rock the Boat", he wrote to condemn the bombings but also to tell readers that "If, as police announced yesterday, four men (at least three from Yorkshire) blew themselves up in the name of Islam, then please let us do ourselves a favour and not act shocked," as "the attack was inevitable" and the result of civilian Iraqi casualties following the US invasion of that country. He went on to suggest that there was a gulf between younger and older generations of British Muslims, and that the younger generation was no longer prepared to suffer perceived injustices in silence. Specifically, he described recent personal experiences at Leeds and Sheffield mosques, in which community religious leaders failed to mention the November 2004 US-Iraqi-British assault on Fallujah, Iraq, which many British Muslims were angry about. The article begins as follows: If