(This news is so bad I can’t think of a clever title for it.)

(Be sure to see Simon N.’s comment below.)

Last January the British tv program Dispatches broadcast “Undercover Mosque,” showing sermons by Muslim imams in British mosques praising terrorism and extremism. Police initially looked at the footage to see if the imams should be prosecuted for stirring up hated, but instead the police purported to find that, far from stirring up hatred, the imams had been unfairly portrayed as haters by the tv program, which the police accused of splicing together footage to give the impression that the imams had said things that they hadn’t said. Police then called for the prosecution of Channel 4, but, as reported in the Daily Mail, a prosecutor found there wasn’t enough evidence to do so. A spokesman for the Channel 4 says: “We believe the offensive views expressed by the people revealed in the programme speak for themselves.”

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Jeff in England writes:

This news item is a great example of Bizarro world, where the liberal establishment (judiciary and police) has accused the makers of the recent undercover Channel 4 DISPATCHES programme of distorting the meaning of blatantly anti-Western violent Muslim UK imams whom they investigated. The violent message of several of the imams couldn’t have been clearer. These imams were advocating violence, one even urging violence against Muslims who wanted to leave the faith. In addition, another of the imams videoed by Channel 4 spoke both of his hatred of homosexuals and his low opinion of women’s intelligence in a very nasty manner.

So one might hope that the imams would be prosecuted and punished and the Muslim culture that spawned them castigated. Nope. Instead it is Channel 4 and its brave undercover reporters in the dock. Ironically, Channel 4 is considered a liberal and at times radical tv station (it is the station which had a woman in a burqua reading the Christmas message to the nation).

Here, for VFR readers with Broadband, are the YOUTUBE videos (in six parts) of the Dispatches programme from a few months ago.

Ben W. writes:

With respect to “(This item is so bad I can’t think of a clever title for it)”, what the Vikings, the Romans, the Spanish Armada and the Third Reich bombers couldn’t accomplish, the imams are accomplishing.

Jeff continues:

The comissioning editor of Channel 4 was on tv tonight denying any of the imams’ speeches were taken out of context. He said that Channel 4 had several people going over the programme before it was shown to make sure there were no out of context distortions. Larry, these imams are trying to squirm out being cornered by their own words. I ask again how we have let these [expletive deleted] into this country. They should be imprisoned. Ditto the ones born here.

Of course this is the price we pay for letting huge amounts of Muslims into the UK. At least Britain has tv stations willing to take them on. (Ironically, as I said, Channel 4 is known for its liberalism).

Jeff writes:

This is the other Channel 4 Dispatches programme (shown this past Monday on tv) on YOUTUBE about the threat to Britain from Muslims in the UK. Again, essential viewing.

Simon N. writes from England:

Just saw this on Channel 4 News earlier tonight. Even by British standards, for the police to threaten Channel 4 with prosecution for revealing what’s happening in the mosques marks a radical new departure. It was the MacPherson report that destroyed the integrity of the police, we now have a highly politicised police force operating fully under cultural-Marxist dialectic. They say that Channel 4’s report “threatens Community Cohesion.”

I’m actually a little teary eyed right now. I had hoped this kind of thing was still years off. My country is being destroyed far faster than I could have believed possible even two years ago.

LA writes:

Here’s a sentence from the Daily Mail story brought to my attention by Simon N. that I had not taken in the first time I read the article:

… Assistant Chief Constable Anil Patani said: “The priority for West Midlands Police has been to investigate the documentary and its making with as much rigour as the extremism the programme sought to portray.”

I’m in awe.

This is something to put up on our walls, to remind us of what Britain and the West have become.

Simon N. adds:

I wonder if the attempt to prosecute Channel 4 was Anil Patani’s doing. He appears to be 2nd in command in Britain’s second largest police force.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 08, 2007 02:20 PM | Send