The BBC has allowed itself to become a soap box for the fascist Hizb’ut Tahrir.
On a web page entitled “Viewpoints: Islam and London bombings “, various short articles by “a selection of experts and public” are printed.
One of these viewpoints is by Dr Imran Waheed, Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, whose view, unsurprisingly is:
“It is time to do away with the tired labels of ‘extremist’ and ‘moderate’“.
Readers are invited to express their agreement or disagreement with the articles printed. This is my contribution:
I agree with, and strongly support, almost all the senitments which are expressed by the voices on this page.
However, I am very surprised that you have chosen to include as the first contribution a representative of Hizb’ut Tahrir, an organisation of which a BBC report said in 2003:
“[Hizb’ut Tahrir] promotes racism and anti-Semitic hatred, calls suicide bombers martyrs, and urges Muslims to kill Jewish people”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3182271.stm
Hizb’ut Tahrir is not representative of British muslims. It is a racist, theocratic, and totalitarian organisation. Like the BNP, it presents a respectable face to the media, while presenting quite a different face to its own membership.
I do not think that the BBC would provide a soap box to a fringe splinter group of the National Front or any other fascist party at all. If the BBC merely reports the views of an extreme political organisation, it has the responsibility, at least, to make it clear that this organisation is widely regarded as extreme.
Instead, you have allowed an extremist to make the case, unchallenged, that his organisations views be treated as mainstream.
I am interested to know how this mistake came to be made, and what you propose to do to rectify it.
Please feel free to print my contribution. I would also ask you pass my comments on to your supervisor.
I would appreciate a response.
Readers of this website may wish to send the BBC their own views.
As a footnote, there is another article on the BBC news site here which describes the Finsbury Park Mosque as having been “reclaimed for the mainstream Muslim community” after the removal of Abu Hamza al-Masri. In fact, it has been taken over by the MAB/Muslim Brotherhood, a gradualist rather than revolutionary theocratic political organisation, whose base is significantly with the small number of arab muslims in Britain. Its prominence is the result, chiefly, of political alliances it has made in recent years.
The MAB/Muslim Brotherhood would very much like to be the voice of the “mainstream Muslim community”. However, it has not yet achieved its goal in Britain.
Update:
What a pity that Dr Imran Waheed didn’t take the opportunity to use the BBC website say something really sexy like, oh, I dunno:
Muslims are slaves to Allah (subhanhu wa ta’aala) and therefore do not worry about superficial concerns such as the endangering of “our peaceful and prosperous residence in the UK”.
Do any of our readers have any other great quotes from Dr Waheed which should be given greater prominence?