From this morning’s Today programme (06.30-ish), here’s BBC political correspondent Norman Smith commenting on the Tories’ claims that government money has gone to schools run by Hizb Ut-Tahrir activists:
“It does seem to me to raise questions, too, about judgement and tone. Judgement as to whether it is appropriate to make such very serious allegations in this way, and although the Tories say that if they hadn’t raised it in this way the issue wouldn’t have been dealt with and the government wouldn’t have acted, I’m sure there will also be people who will argue that well, actually, perhaps it’s better to make such sensitive claims in private through the usual channels.”
So here we have a BBC journalist wondering if it’s even appropriate to discuss openly the “sensitive” issue of Islamic fundamentalism.
The families of the dead at Fort Hood know where that sort of thinking can lead.
I too heard this “report” so was interested to see how this was going to be reported in the “Yesterday in Parliament” slot a little later. Much to my surprise a somewhat different interpretation on the difficulties experienced by our glorious leader was shown. Perhaps the YiP segment was recorded before the BBC line had been decided on.
Am I right in thinking that the current position is that yes, they are behind the schools but no the money was not “anti-terrorism” money?
Gerald – here’s an update from Andrew Gilligan, a former Today correspondnet who doesn’t share Norman Smith’s hand-wringing attitude to this topic.
So funding Islamic terrorism and hatred is OK so long as the money doesn’t specifically come from money allocated to fight Muslim terrorism?
And why is it the BBC think it’s OK for head teachers to be members of these organisations but not the BNP?
well thats easy, the BNP are bad racists, Hizb Ut-Tahrir are the good racists in bbc speak. keep up……..its only racist and bad when its white on black, never the reverse
The BBC needs to do some investigative journalism on the threat of Hizb ut-Tahrir:
“Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology and Strategy”
http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1257159197_1.pdf
Also:
“Denial, England”
(Melanie Phillips, 2007)
[Extract]:
“Indeed, there are worrying signs that Brown will actually go further than the government has already gone in appeasing the Muslim lobby. He is refusing to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir — which is radicalizing countless young British Muslims, particularly on campus.
He is refusing to ban the building of what is intended to be the largest mosque in Europe on the site of the 2012 Olympic village in east London — a mosque funded by the Tablighi Jamaat, said by the FBI and French intelligence to be the ‘antechamber to al-Qaeda’ in Europe. And after the attacks on Glasgow airport and the London nightclub in the very week he took office last June, his government went out of its way not to refer to Muslims or Islamic terror but talked instead of ‘crime’ by ‘communities.’”
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=533
I presume you’ve all seen this enlightening comparison of the treatment of Christianity and the Religion of Piss on Al-beebs Relgious Education pages: http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/07/islam-bbc-and-young-children.html
Our state-funded broadcaster should stick to mere reporting of facts, under the guidelines originally set out by Lord Reith. As a tax revenue-backed broadcaster the BBC should stick to reporting what happened. Norman Smith’s pontifications about what may be appropriate are irrelevant and unnecessary and of such little value they are an insult to the taxpayer
The article on Saudi witchcraft trials was mentioned by someone else but I couldn’t find the link. It’s interesting and relevant to this post.
1/ The article comes (press release?) from Human Rights Watch who distinguished themselves in the past by soliciting financial aid from the Saudis to continue their efforts against Isarael.
2/ It is a cut and paste job from an earlier BBC article including the same graphic and caption.
but I think the most interesting point is ignored.
3/ The ‘offense’ was committed by a Lebanese in Beirut who was arrested during a pilgramage to Medina. The Saudis are claiming Universal Jurisdiction for religious offenses committed outside Saudi Arabia. Heretics, by Wahabi standards, can be arrested in Saudi Arabia. Taken to its most extreme (we are talking about Saudi Arabia, after all) Pres. Obama, who by most Islamic standards is an apostate, could be arrested, tried and executed. He won’t even have to make a prediction that doesn’t come true.
The quote used from Norman Smith is most revealing. The prime directive is so called ” community cohesion”. It was also the main thrust of Ball’s argument on Newsnight last night.
Multiculturalism is still the ideology to be upheld at all costs.
H- Tahir doubtless have no interest in multiculturalism. Why on earth should it? It’s actions are at least logical and consistent.
I suppose a pragmatic view would be that banning HT would only lead to it appearing under another guise.
It is necessary for the Islamic part of our population to deal with HT and it’s like. If it has the desire or will to do so. Failure to marginalise the extremists and to come out against the failed doctrine of multiculturalism will lead to increasingly ghettoising the Muslim minority- a situation many non Muslims have no quarrel with.
Once again the liberal left, in it’s pursuit of the unreal, is creating a future it did not envisage when it set out to create it’s vision of a happy fluffy world.
“H- Tahir doubtless have no interest in multiculturalism”
Dave, religious Nazis like H-T have a great deal of interest in the suicidal nonsense of multiculturalism. It saves them all that bother of cultivating a child or retarded adult (or even better – a retarded child) to strap a suicide vest on to kill a few infidels, when infidel society is more than willing to strap the suicide vest of multi-culturalism onto itself and implode en masse.
hippiepooter
“HT Membership – to be or not to be”
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/11/26/ht-membership-%e2%80%93-to-be-or-not-to-be/
At 6.20 this morning on Radio 5, Smith was reporting it as a major gaffe by Cameron. He went on to say that the Tories were going through a bad patch at the moment, with a recent poll showing their lead over Labour as having shrunk to only 6%. The more recent Angus Reid poll showing it at 17%, and another poll with the same survey end date as the ‘6%’ Mori one, giving it at 13%, seemed to have slipped his mind.
– Hot off the BBC’s subsidised Islamic presses:
“Heavy rain and swine flu fears hamper Hajj”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8377818.stm
The dhimmi BBC edits out this aspect of Hajj:
“Iranian pilgrims shout ‘Death to America, death to Israel’ at Hajj”
“At the holiest time, at the holiest place, this is what springs to their minds. I wonder what Obama’s grandmama thought if she heard it. Feel the love: ‘Iran pilgrims stage hajj protest,’ by Adel Zaanoun for AFP”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/11/iranian-pilgrims-shout-death-to-america-death-to-israel-at-hajj.html
Just a small, unrepresentative minority of blah blah blah.
Didn’t the BBC just wallow in the latest pronouncements by the catholic church on child abuse. I look forward to a “fearless” BBC investigation into child abuse in Islam.