Glenn Beck, a controversial, popular far-right American TV and radio commentator is well-known for his outrageous opinions on almost every subject. Beck has a legion of followers - his Facebook page has over a million fans - and at one time, he had one of the most popular shows on cable-TV outlet Fox News, known in the U.S. for its far-right opinions. But some media sources allege that even Fox found Beck a bit too controversial, and too powerful to control, and ended his show. Others say that viewers and advertisers were growing tired of his endless conspiracy theories. Whatever the reason, Beck then founded his own cable channel, The Blaze. But Beck is being now sued by a young Muslim man who was a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing, a year ago this month, but who Beck portrayed as being deeply involved with the terrorist crime. Abdulrahman Alharbi, who was attending the race that day, and was injured when the home-made bombs exploded, filed a federal lawsuit late in March against Beck and his companies, The Blaze Inc. and Mercury Radio Arts, and his radio syndicator, Premier Radio Networks. In the first few days following the explosions, traditional and social media were buzzing with speculation about who was behind the bombings. Some outlets went too far, however. The New York Post, for instance, splashed a picture of two other young Muslim men on their front page because they were carrying backpacks, under the headline "Bag Men". (Authorities believed at the time that the explosives had been hidden in backpacks.) The two young men later sued the Post, alleging that it had falsely claimed that they were being sought by federal authorities, which was not true. Eventually the FBI identified two men, the Tsarnaev brothers, as primary suspects behind the attack. In Alharbi's case, after he suffered his injuries and was treated, he was questioned as a witness, and consented to a search of his apartment. He was quickly ruled out as having any involvement with the crime. But he was singled out by Beck. "Let me just say this to those at the highest echelons of government," Beck said on his media channel, The Blaze. "We know who this Saudi national is, and it is in your best interest and the best interest of integrity and trust for the people of United States of America – it's best coming from you, not coming from a news organization. It's best coming from you." Beck claimed that several "patriots" within the government, has told him about the "coverup" of Alharbi's alleged involvement with the bombing. In May, Beck continued to talk about Alharbi, accusing him of funding the attacks. But none of the statements made by Beck turned out to be true. Courthouse News reports that Alharbi's lawsuit says that "the defendant Glenn Beck, with the active participation of the distributor defendants, repeatedly and falsely identified Mr. Alharbi as an active participant in the crimes that were committed on April 15, 2013, repeatedly questioned the motives of federal officials in failing to pursue or detain Mr. Alharbi and repeatedly and falsely accused Mr. Alharbi of being a criminal who had funded the attacks that took place at the Boston Marathon. Those statements were made widely and publicly. The statements were false and did grave injury to the plaintiff." Since many statements made by controversial right-wing hosts like Beck tend to reverberate in the conservative echo chamber even after they had been proven false, Alharbi's lawsuit says that he has regularly been called "a murderer, child killer, and terrorist" based on Beck's statements. Among some of the more controversial statements that Beck has made over time, were that billionaire George Soros might have him killed for "exposing" the details behind an oil deal in Brazil, that Marxists and Islamic radicals were behind the Arab Spring and were out to "implode the whole world" and create a new caliphate, and that the Obama administration might kill up to 10 percent of the American population, to name a few. Beck has so far not responded publicly to Alharbi's lawsuit.
