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It is Eid today, the Muslim festival marking the end of the arduous month of Ramadan, when we give up food and drink from sunrise to sunset. We should be feasting after fasting.
Instead we are fearful and furious. A suspected gang of British Muslim extremists allegedly tried to firebomb the home of Martin Rynja, publisher of the forthcoming novel by Sherry Jones on the imagined life of Ayesha, Prophet Mohammed's youngest bride. Rynja is in hiding and almost 20 years on from the devastating Rushdie affair, Muslims are once more seen as barbarians and violent censors.
I don't blame ordinary Britons for these perceptions. For years now, they have heard our ranting fanatics bullying and threatening reprisals, most of all on the supposedly ethical BBC, which habitually seeks out for comment the most vile Muslims it can find. And so it is today. Anjem Choudary, a trained lawyer with poisonous slime on his tongue, has this week been on every BBC channel, saying: “The messenger Mohammed said that whoever insults any messenger of God, they will carry capital punishment, so this has been clear with the case of Salman Rushdie, Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh.”
Choudary has taken over from old villains Abu Hamza (under house arrest) and Omar Bakri (exiled in Lebanon), who were regulars on radio and TV expressing hatred of the West.
Meanwhile sensible, integrated Muslims are excluded by the corporation. When some launched British Muslims for Secular Democracy, the broadcaster was disdainful and uninterested; an independent producer asked me to present a series on the perceptions of Muslims in the popular imagination. All quiet on that front suddenly — I am not the right kind of Muslim for the BBC, I reckon.
As the crisis over Jones's novel builds up, the broadcaster could elicit the views of Tory Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, or Rushanara Ali, the articulate Labour candidate for Tower Hamlets, or the playwright Ayub Khan Din, who wrote the film East is East. But they wouldn't be provocative enough, wouldn't fuel the fire or confirm prejudices.
It is outrageous, this abrogation of duty to the public the corporation is paid to serve. The BBC is guilty of calculated incitement. It has a serious case to answer. Will it? I don't think so: it's too arrogant for such accountability.
Reader views (13)
"It takes someone like Y A-B to point this out, and we owe her a vote of thanks for it."
Actually many of us have been saying this for at least the last 5 years. The BBC has an ill-deserved reputation as being 'impartial' but take a close look and it is firmly on the side of the government - and they use the 'divide and rule' technique as often as possible on behalf of the government. Many people have pointed out how racist the BBC is before now. It was even the most pro-war of all the media in the run up to Iraq according to two separate studies.
- John Baker, London N13, 03/10/2008 11:08
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"Anjem Choudary, a trained lawyer with poisonous slime on his tongue, has this week been on every BBC channel, saying: “The messenger Mohammed said that whoever insults any messenger of God, they will carry capital punishment,..."
Now in the qur'an christ is considered a "messenger of god" and we all know muslem clerics and muslems in general insult christ every day when they deny he is the son of god which every good christian knows is absolutely true. Thus based on anjem choudary's statement do I as an evangelical born again christian now have the right as given me by the qur'an to kill every moslem that denies the divinity of christ?
- Pete, Phoenix, Az, 02/10/2008 20:40
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Yasmin is quite right. Maybe the BBC has an agenda to stir up racial hatred and increase social friction. They cant do this overtly of course, its illegal. But they can and, as Yasmin has observed, indeed do do it covertly by giving plenty of air-time and publicity oxygen to the most repellant hard-liners out there, without balance, and then derides anyone who criticises them as 'racist'. It takes someone like Y A-B to point this out, and we owe her a vote of thanks for it.
- Martin, Twickenham UK, 02/10/2008 17:59
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The BBC does indeed select the most extreme Muslims to comment. It has in recent years become a most reactionary broadcaster. But if we're being honest, most of the media has lined us with the establishment and adopted the same attitude and pushed the same agenda with regard to Muslims.
- Arabella Mayer, Oxon, UK, 02/10/2008 12:48
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Yes let's pretend that Islam is not a threat to our English society. Censorship is needed, the kind you get in any Muslim country. Iran for instance, a lovely Muslim society that hangs it's children for crimes against Islam.
Any chance Madam Muslim would attack Aljazeera with the same vigour. No, wouldn't want to upset those dangerous radicals that apparently we should not highlight in our society.
- Frank, Home Counties, England., 02/10/2008 11:24
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Muslims ignore the facts of islam. They just blame others and spin non-muslims into guilt.
Rule 1 Ignore the 14 koran rules to kill anyone of another faith. Standard koran.
Rule 2 Blame all others for anything (cartoons), and be a victim to justify revenge killing. Traditional koran.
Rule 3 Never admit any muslim rule is wrong. That would mean a death sentence from muslims. Cultural koran.
Muslims need help to escape a catch 22. Many muslims want to leave the culture of threats, violence and murder. Many have been brave. The CEMB is the Council of Ex Muslims of Britain. The majority struggle. They dare not say anything against extreme violence.
Muslims see other faiths are personal choices. Only muslims are obliged to kill, especially family members, who choose another faith, or no faith. That rule alone needs change. It allows murder of thousands, beating of millions, mainly women. UN reports some 3 million girls a year have their genitals cut out under fatwa. No neat penis circumcision, the whole genital area is ripped out to stop enjoyment of sex. The aim to make a girl into a slave.
Koran takeyya (lies allowed) lets muslims openly deny responsibilty. But it is their fatwas, and immams.
The surprise is no action by labour, socialists, left wing, feminists and homosexuals. Muslims openly say they oppose British values of peaceful fair tolerance and rule of law. Where is Labour, and our left wing heroic protests? Speak out or lose?
- Moham, Bradford, 02/10/2008 11:19
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I must say, Ms.Alibhai-Brown, that although your superstition demands that during Eid "we give up food and drink from sunrise to sunset", you will I hope forgive me for saying that you never look as though you've benefited much from it.
- Brian Clacey, Croydon, 02/10/2008 10:23
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Trust a Muslim to have ago at the media for mealy pointing out what your Muslim brothers and sisters are doing! You have the bottle to mention censor yet wish to do it yourself which would be funny if it weren't for you being Muslim too...........
- John, Salford/England, 02/10/2008 07:49
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BBC is a disgrace and must be disbanded. It is nothing more than an extreme left wing mouth piece. They incite more religious hatred than all the other media put together
- Lemar, London, 01/10/2008 21:23
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I suggest that the Equalities Commission, in particular, Trevor Phillips get off their fat, lazy backsides and investigate the BBC immediately. If the BBC is airing only the views of extremists, then it is inciting religious hatred towards Muslims; it is encouraging the British population to hate all Muslims. That is not acceptable. The managers at the Equalities Commission are paid huge salaries by hard-pressed taxpayers, they should start working for those salaries.
- Cameron, London, 01/10/2008 14:42
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A pity that Choudray wasn't arrested and put in irons. Any Muslim that doesn't understand tolerance and criticism of their religion, deserves the same harsh, feudal treatment that their religion seems to espouse.
- Dhanraj, basildon, essex, 01/10/2008 13:01
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The BBC is certainly flawed,but treats Israel and the Tories with equal partiality in its reporting and programming. Question Time, for example, always has three lefties and one right winger on its panels and BBC's news broadcasts are heavily editorialised to reflect its Guardian recruitment advertising.
I suggest moderate Muslims resort to the internet, You Tube etc. and main stream newspapers, Channel 4 and Al Jazera to express their disdain of these fanatics.
There are many different forms of media for dissent. My fear, and that of many I know, is that moderate Muslims are too scared to speak out against the outrages of their co-religionists. It is time for bold voices to stand up publicly against not just the fanatics, but the MCB and the PC appeasers inside our Government who embolden them.
- Stephen Rothbart, Prague, Czech Republic, 01/10/2008 11:53
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This BBC bias has been noted for many years, by me. However I have also seen Alibi Brown on BBC programmes for many years and I do not remember her mentioning this bias before. Oh well, better late than never.
- Petes, London England, 01/10/2008 11:37
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