Shahid Bolsen addresses his controversial history

I think it's fair to say that there's quite a lot of rather shocking material about you online. I mean, people may come across your commentaries and want to find out more about you. But a quick Google search of your name will undoubtedly leave them, shall we say, uneasy, to say the least.

For sure. I understand that. A quick Google search of my name leaves me uneasy, to say the least. I mean, if that's how you feel about it, how do you think I feel about it? What can I do?

Well, would you not like to address that at all? Because let's be honest, your background is rather alarming. I mean, someone might be inclined towards your analysis only to then discover some of these articles, and it makes them want to run-in the opposite direction.

Sure. Yeah. It would make them want to run-in the opposite direction, which is one of the reasons why those articles and that material was produced in the first place. Precisely to, discredit me and to make people run-in the opposite direction of me because most of that material was written. At the same time, when I was advocating a strategy in Egypt for the opposition that would help to prevent Egypt plunging into civil war because I don't know if you remember, but back in those days No one in Egypt knows what's gonna happen next.

It could go anyway. And shortly after the coup took place, and shortly after the massacre at Rabah We have suffered from killer, killers, just killers. There was and and this was simultaneous too when ISIS was becoming very prominent in Syria, and there was actually a lot of sympathy for ISIS among Egyptian opposition activists and calls for jihad in Egypt. People going to Sinai and taking up arms and doing all sorts of things and thinking that they wanted ISIS to come to Cairo.

US counterterrorism official tells CNN, Willyot Sinai is one of ISIS' most active and potent affiliates. The official says they pledged their allegiance to ISIS last year and have adopted ISIS's branding and brutal tactics.

So at that time, I was advocating strategies that were really inspired by the American labor movement, in the early days of the American labor movement. And, to a certain extent by the anti globalization movement of the late nineteen nineties, early two thousands. And I was advocating non violent disruption of corporate interests, disruption of business interests, and specifically and explicitly and repeatedly warned against violence, warned against bloodshed. Our slogan at that time was no justice, no profit. Not no justice, no peace.

We rearranged that slogan from no justice, no peace to no justice, no profit. That was specifically and exclusively what was being targeted by the strategies that I advocated, was the profitability and the operational efficiency of multinational corporations in Egypt. Bloodless, disruption without bloodshed was the mantra, and it was effective even though there was very, very limited mobilization among activists who were interested in my ideas. Because I have to be very clear, I was not in communication with any militant or any opposition groups on the

ground, any organized set of groups on the

ground at all. I just wrote on Facebook and some people liked what I wrote. The only thing that I was involved in directly was basically letter writing campaigns. But in terms of any action on the ground, there was, first of all, very little of it. But what there was of it, it was effective and it had an impact.

And it was helping to actually move people away from the lure of violent jihad. It was moving people away from armed struggle. It was moving people away from violence. And it was targeting corporate interests. It was targeting private sector power.

And it was changing the focus of activists on the ground. It was changing the focus of the opposition and bringing finally into the discussion about, the political situation in Egypt, the impact and the influence of multinational corporations and institutions like the IMF and the, the impact that foreign investors were having on the situation in Egypt, and the extent to which, foreign financial interests were, to one degree or another, responsible for the coup in the first place. And so the Egyptian government portrayed me as either a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood or portrayed me as someone who was advocating violence or who was talking about armed struggle and this and that. But as I said, you can't find out of 4,000 pages of my writing anywhere where I called for violence, anywhere where I called for armed struggle, anywhere where I called for bloodshed or anything of that sort. All you can find with regards to those types of things is me condemning it, me warning against it, me advising so called revolutionaries to do everything in their power to avoid violence.

And so, naturally, foreign policy in New York Times, of course, the Egyptian press all had to portray me as a violent extremist calling for the overthrow of the government and calling for terrorist attacks and so on. You won't find a single, example of that in over 4,000 pages worth of writing that I did on Egypt. The things that have been written about me, the material that has been produced about me that's negative like that and it distorts my ideas and distorts what I advocated. This specifically was for the purpose of trying to get people to turn away from me and to run the opposite direction for sure. But as I said, in terms of feeling inclined to address it, when, I was misrepresented at the time, I responded at the time.

The problem is that I'm still producing content, and the content that I'm producing generally is political in nature, and it's advocating for the, economic sovereignty and political independence of Muslim countries. So it makes enemies, and those enemies will continuously regurgitate those old articles that are on Google that are negative about me, calling me a murderer, calling me terrorist, calling me Al Qaeda, calling me ISIS, or whatever else they might come up with, Muslim Brotherhood. They just regurgitate these things.

So

I'm never free from from any of that. And I know every time I write something, every time I take a position, every time I I I write or or or make a video expressing an opinion, that anyone who disagrees with that opinion will just Google me and then will fill my comment section with links talking about what a terrible person I am because they can't actually respond to what I'm saying. So they have to discredit me and say the things that they think will make people run the other way. If you're interested in knowing anything about me, you could actually listen to me. And presumably, you Googled me because you did listen to me and you liked what I said.

So then you Googled me, and it took you to disturbing articles defaming me. The problems that are being caused by the things that I'm saying are that I'm being defamed as a result of the things that I'm saying. Not that the things that I'm saying themselves are troublesome, but they're troublesome to a certain segment of interests, and so they produce defamatory material. In most of the countries that I've ever been in, I've been questioned, and I've been questioned by the FBI. And what was I questioned about?

I was never questioned about the things that I myself said. I was never questioned about my own writing. I was never questioned about my own statements. I was questioned about what has been written about me. I've always been questioned about what has been written about me.

So it serves its purpose. So then it comes down to the discretion and the discrimination of every individual person, whether or not you're going to listen to what I actually say myself, or be convinced by what is said about me, and whether or not you're going to even do that much research. And if you're someone who, for example, is is ready to take your news and your information from the weekly blitz, then, you don't belong on my page in the first place.

Okay. But wouldn't you at least like to tell your side of the story? At least in terms of the murder case in The UAE? I think that part of your history is probably what people find the most disturbing.

Well, okay. In terms of the murder case in The UAE, I did tell my side of the story, and I told it when and where and to whom it mattered, which was the court in Abu Dhabi, the Supreme Court. And that was after more than seven years of not being able to give my side of the story to anyone. I wasn't able to meet with an attorney. I wasn't able to present any evidence in court.

I wasn't able to testify. And then finally, after seven years on death row, I was finally able to present my side of the story in court to the judge, to a panel of judges, and they reached their verdict, which was I was guilty of a crime, but not that crime. So I was sentenced according to manslaughter, which was appropriate. Had I been guilty of murder, I wouldn't be here today. I would have been executed.

I had two friends of mine who were executed while I was in prison. So it's not as if the The UAE is particularly lenient about that sort of thing. But when they find that that's not actually the crime that you are guilty of, then you don't receive that punishment. And that's what happened to me. I ended up being sentenced to less time than I had already served.

I was ordered to pay compensation to the family of the deceased, and I was released. So beyond the court judgment, I don't really feel the need to explain it much more than that. Now in terms of giving my side of the story with regards to claims of, promoting violence or terrorism or any of these sorts of things, my side of the story is available on on Facebook. Everything that I ever said or wrote about Egypt or anything else. Also, my side of the story is there with regards to that.

So if you want to know my side of the story, it's available. My side of the story with regards to the case in The UAE was presented to the court, and that sentence was served and it was more than served. Because as I said, I ended up serving I think two or three years longer than what I was, ultimately sentenced. It was a disaster in my life. It was a tragic catastrophic event, which led to a catastrophic disastrous seven and a half years of imprisonment on death row.

It's not something that I wish to, revisit. You know, the understanding in Islam is that if you commit a wrong, and you pay the price for that, you pay the punishment for that, then from that point on, you are able to move on with your life. And I mean, in The UAE, from the police to the prosecutors to the, warden of the prison to the prison guards, everyone refers to your case as a as a mistake. This is why also we understand in Islam, someone who has committed a sin is someone who has wronged themself. You have harmed yourself.

If you are able to undergo in this dunya the punishment for some wrong that you did, then you are cleared of that. You're cleared of that case. You're cleared of that crime. You're cleared of that wrongdoing because you have undergone the punishment for it. So from that point on, you're able to move on with your life.

Now I know that in the so called Christian forgiving West, they don't really believe in forgiveness actually. They talk about it, but in actual practice, they don't. It's incredibly difficult for an ex convict to move on with their life in the West. In the Muslim world, we take a much more forgiving and pardoning, compassionate, position with regards to people who have been convicted of crimes. If they have served their punishment, they don't have that tied around their neck for the rest of their life.

As I said, I know in the West, that's not the case. If you've ever done anything wrong, then you you're you're sentenced for life. Even if you have, undergone the punishment for that, you are supposed to be punished forever for that in the forgiving Christian West. But that's not the attitude that Muslims have.

And what about this claim that you were the mastermind behind the kidnapping of Princess Latifah, or that you are a member of Al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood? Can you clear any of that up?

First of all, anyone can find out what happened to princess Latifa, to Sheikha Latifa. Anyone can find out her story. It's not an obscure story.

My name is Latifa Al Maktoum. My father is a prime minister of UAE and the ruler of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Saydan Maktoum. And if you are watching this video, it's not such a good thing. Either I'm dead or I'm in a very, very, very bad situation.

So anyone can know that, for example, she was in contact with a man named Herve Jaubert, a dual citizen, American French citizen, who agreed to help her try to escape what she alleged was severe abuse by her father, the ruler of Dubai. They worked together secretly, for a very long time to concoct a plan, whereby he could help her escape.

How she contacted me and how she explained to me the the the horrors that she went through, and then we set up a plan for her to escape.

I was not involved in that in any way until after Latifa had escaped from Dubai and she was on the yacht and she contacted Radha Sterling, who is the CEO and founder of Detained in Dubai, an organization that I, was doing work for, that I was a consultant for, that I did some writing for and media strategy and this sort of thing. And she was contacted because she's very well known. She has supported many, many people, thousands of people, helping them to fight injustice in The UAE. Wrongfully accused people, wrongfully detained people. So Latifa reached out to her, and then I became involved in the case, only as someone who was helping to craft a media strategy for highlighting her case and bringing her case to the media.

And I was involved at the time when Latifa was recaptured by her father, by the UAE military and the Indian military, off the coast of Goa, India. And then the writing that I did and the the media strategy consultation that I did with with Rada for detained in Dubai helped draw media attention to that case and helped to save the lives of everyone who was on that yacht. If it had never received the media spotlight, it's very possible that all of those people would have been killed.

That was what the orders were. To kill us all, sink the boat, bring Latifah back. The reason why they changed their plan is when they saw that they could not cover it up anymore.

So that's my involvement with the Latifah case. I believe more is gonna come out about the Latifah case in the coming weeks and months. With regards to Al Qaeda, as I said, I've been threatened by Al Qaeda. They don't like me at all. I've been threatened by ISIS.

I was told that I was gonna be slaughtered by someone from ISIS. I was told that I would be hunted down by someone from Al Qaeda or allegedly from Al Qaeda. Again, what I feel, what I think, what my position is on groups like Al Qaeda or Daesh or ISIS, it's all available. You can check yourself. You can you can read anything and everything that I ever wrote about these people.

And as I said, everything that I ever wrote about Egypt and everything that I ever tried to do in Egypt was specifically to try to, save opposition activists and young people from falling into the hands of groups like ISIS and groups like Al Qaeda. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, they can't stand me. And again, I have a very long public record of rather harsh criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, I've been told that my writing and my ideas actually caused something of a rift inside the Muslim Brotherhood because there were young people, young Egyptians, who were supporters or members of the Muslim Brotherhood who liked my approach better than the Muslim Brotherhood's approach. And they tried to move the Muslim Brotherhood in that direction, but the Muslim Brotherhood wanted nothing to do with it because ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood are neoliberals.

They're interested in having a seat in the government so that they can be the ones to, implement the neoliberal program of foreign investors and multinationals. They're not actually interested in what they say they're interested in, and I've been, extremely critical of them for years. So, no, I don't belong to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood wouldn't have me even if I wanted to join them. They want nothing to do with me.

They want nothing to do with my ideas, and I want nothing to do with them either. And I have nothing to do with ISIS. I have nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and they have nothing to do with me, and we can't stand each other. If you understand anything about any of those groups, then you would also understand how preposterous it is to say that I have anything to do with them when our ideas do not align in any way whatsoever. I dislike talking about myself and talking about my history, but I do know that people have concerns, and I understand those concerns.

And frankly, I'm tired of the questions. So with the murder case, no, it wasn't a murder case. I was convicted of manslaughter, and I was guilty of manslaughter. And I would hope that you can understand that that's not something that I wanna revisit in my life. It's not something that I wanna think about.

It's not something I wanna talk about. It's not something I wanna keep bringing up, and, I'm doing my best to move on from it and to move forward in my life. I was never involved in any sort of criminal or violent activity before then nor since. In fact, before that, I had already been dedicating years of my life to trying to help young people avoid violence and to get out of violent lifestyles and gang lifestyles, in my hometown when I was younger. And immediately when I was released from prison, I started writing about Egypt and trying to advise in strategies that could help very energized and emotional and zealous young people not fall for the lure of groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda, and to not go, on the path of violence and armed resistance and armed struggle in Egypt.

So in fact, most of my life, I have been dedicated to promoting effective nonviolent strategies for social change and for, resisting and fighting against injustice without violence. No matter how many thousands of pages I have written talking about non violence, talking about disruption without bloodshed, civil disobedience, no matter how many thousands of pages I have talking about that, I still get called violent. I still get they still say that I'm advocating violence. So again, I I like my channel to be about my actual ideas and about my actual analysis. But for the sake of people who are not familiar with me or people who are not familiar with my history, when you Google my name, you'll be shocked and you'll be disturbed and you'll be upset.

And, yes, maybe you'll wanna run-in the opposite direction, which is why it's there in the first place to make you do that. So here I am trying my best to maintain my own dignity and privacy, trying to answer these questions to, allay any concerns or fears that anyone might have. Now if it's not enough for you, if you don't wanna listen to me because you can't get past the fact that I was in prison, that's up to you. And you have every right to just dismiss anything that I ever have to say. Because, frankly, if that's the way your mind works, it my words would probably be wasted on you anyway.