Monday, 1 September 2008

Undercover Mosque: The Return. 8pm tonight

A year-and-a-half after the critically-acclaimed film Undercover Mosque was first screened, Dispatches goes undercover again to see whether extremist beliefs continue to be promoted in certain key British Muslim institutions. The film also investigates the role of the Saudi Arabian religious establishment in spreading a hard-line, fundamentalist Islamic ideology in the UK - the very ideology the Government claims to be tackling.A female reporter attends prayer meetings at an important British mosque which claims to be dedicated to moderation and dialogue with other faiths. She secretly films shocking sermons given to the women-only congregation in which female preachers recite extremist and intolerant beliefs. As hundreds of women and some children come to pray, a preacher calls for adulterers, homosexuals, women who act like men and Muslim converts to other faiths to be killed, saying: "Kill him, kill him. You have to kill him, you understand. This is Islam."Worshippers are repeatedly told they must lead separate lives from non-believers and not tolerate other religions. Christian teachings are described as "vile and disgusting, an abomination." And at private, invite-only prayer meetings linked to the mosque, the reporter films the leading preacher from the women's prayer circle issuing strict dictats on women's personal freedoms - decreeing they must not travel far without a male member of the family to escort them, and instructing them not to integrate with British society or work in a non-Islamic environment.In the same mosque, the reporter visits the bookshop and discovers books and DVDs still on sale, promoting extremist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and intolerant messages. Unbelievers ('kuffaars') are described in one DVD as: "Evil, wicked, mischievous people - you can see the evil in their face". Whilst Jews, "have abominated, filthy, disgusting gross belief - their time will come like every other evil person's time will come." Moderate Muslims and Islamic academics tell Dispatches they reject and condemn these teachings. Dispatches traces the links between the teachings and materials at the mosque and the Saudi Arabian religious establishment, and examines the extent to which Saudi Arabia exports such teachings around the world through the funding of literature, schools, mosques and other organisations.Dispatches also interviews a former teacher at a Saudi-run faith school who describes how the official Saudi educational curriculum was taught in the school. He shows Dispatches official Saudi textbooks from the school which featured anti-Semitic and anti-Christian teachings. Dispatches

If this dispatches programme is anything like the previous one it will do the reputation of Islam no favours. For an alternate view of Islam you could tune into Tameside Radio to hear a differing account of Islam from Imran Hussain who is hosting a series of shows throughout September as part of Tameside Radio’s Islamic Awareness month. The first episode in this series clashes with tonight’s Dispatches programme so anyone interested in learning more about Islam would be advised to watch or listen to one and record the other. Tameside Citizen

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am watching the Dispatches programme now. Tolerent people arn't they?

Anonymous said...

It was crap nothing new

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.