Indigo Jo Blogs

Via Deenport and Pickled Politics, we hear that Channel 4 is planning to have a woman in niqab to read their "alternative Christmas message" this year:

A veiled Muslim woman will deliver this year's alternative Christmas speech on Channel 4, the broadcaster has said. Khadija, a Zimbabwean-born British citizen who has been wearing the full veil - or niqab - for 10 years, has been given the slot. The message will reflect a year in which the wearing of religious clothing and symbols have "dominated the news agenda", said a Channel 4 spokesman.

More: Daily Mail (which broke the story), Media Guardian, BBC News.

Leon at PP suggests that the channel "has decided to take its pseudo subversive ‘controversy’ reputation one step further", but what is of concern to Muslims is that this will give the Express and similar stupid rags an excuse to manufacture yet another of their pseudo-scandals to make a huge profit at our expense. Perhaps we should flood Channel 4 with letters and faxes, or perhaps we might defend the idea, given that Christmas is right at the end of the year and that the Christmas message is often about things which have affected the country over the past year, and is a logical time to give such a speech since it's exactly a week before the start of the next year.

By the way, who on earth is this Khadija? We are told she is in her early 30s, was born in Zimbabwe and has British nationality, lives in the Midlands and is "a freelance teacher and lecturer in Islamic studies and the Qur'an", but we are not given any other details about her, supposedly to avoid her being inundated with interview requests. Perhaps someone out there knows who this Khadija is; I'm not suggesting you post her address, but maybe we could be enlightened as to why she went along with this idea.