BBC2: The Retreat
BBC – BBC TWO – The Retreat This is a BBC2 series, starting tomorrow, about a group of people who went on an "Islamic retreat" at the Alqueria de Rosales, an Islamic complex with...
Category: Media
Rebuttal to Daily Spew and response to Harry’s Place
Five Chinese Crackers: More bullsh*t from the Express Thanks to Osama Saeed, a comprehensive rebuttal of the garbage on the front page of yesterday's Daily Spew regarding the MCB's report (PDF) about how British...
An attack on the idea of communities
In the past couple of weeks, three events led to much heated discussion about the idea of "communities" in the West, and "community leaders" in particular: a Policy Exchange report (PDF) suggesting, among other...
BBC Radio – The British Mosque
Radio 4 – The British Mosque This is a BBC Radio 4 programme which was broadcast on Friday, which discusses the debates among architects involved in British mosque design, which actually has practices dedicated...
More on silly 9/11 conspiracy theories
As an example of the sort of silly conspiracy-mongering George Monbiot was talking about in his article in the Guardian on Tuesday (which I linked), here is a reply to it (third letter down),...
A culture of leaks and contempt
A Law Unto Themselves (from today's Media Guardian, may require free registration) Peter Wilby (former editor of the New Statesman) on the "consistent and brazen disregard for the contempt laws" which exists in the...
Cameron on “British values”
The Conservative Party leader David Cameron wrote in today's Observer about the "British values" issues which were under much discussion this past week. Of merit is his debunking of stupid suggestions like having a...
BBC feature on Misbah Rana
BBC Radio 4 – From Molly to Misbah This is a BBC radio programme which was on Radio 4 this afternoon (I’ve not listened to it yet) featuring Misbah Rana, the girl also known...
Such anger over the antics of idiots
I don’t know why I was surprised by the spectacle of protests in India, complete with effigy burnings, against the racist bullying of Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood actress, on the notorious Channel 4 programme Big Brother, two nights ago. I did not see the actual episode as (until last night) I didn’t watch this wretched, trashy, clapped-out programme. However, I did hear the discussion of the episode on yesterday morning’s Vanessa Feltz show, and most of it was not sympathetic to the three women responsible.
Reflections on “Undercover Mosque”
Having seen Channel 4's documentary Undercover Mosque, which was shown earlier this evening (see earlier entry), I am now more reassured regarding the material quoted from the preachers they showed; however, the programme-makers repeatedly...
The Wahhabis are our problem, not yours
On Wednesday evening the Evening Standard ran an “exposé” on the central mosque in London, alleging that its bookshop was run by Wahhabis and that the mosque is run by Saudi Arabia. The specific accusation is that the bookshop sells DVDs by Khalid Yasin and one Shaikh Feiz which contains content the average white Briton might find offensive, among them that women are deficient in intelligence compared to men, that Jews are comparable to pigs and that Christian missionaries deliberately spread AIDS in Africa under the cover of vaccines for common dangerous diseases.
Another false exposé by right-wing bloggers
Comment is free: Victim of the bloggers Brian Whitaker of how "patriotic" right-wing American bloggers saw a conspiracy where there was none, alleging that an Iraqi police captain, Jamil Hussain, was someone the Associated...
Khadijah Atkinson’s alternative Christmas message
YouTube – Channel 4's alternative Christmas message This is the Alternative Christmas Message that Channel 4 broadcast after the earlier candidate, Khadija Ravat, pulled out after discovering that the community was opposed and that...
Letter to the BBC about Vanessa Feltz
This is a letter I wrote to David Robey, the managing editor of BBC London, about the Vanessa Feltz show last Monday, in which she recycled a story from the Daily Star about a...
Feltz pinches story from the Star
This morning, Vanessa Feltz took her BBC London radio show to a new low by recycling a story from the Black Hole, otherwise known as the Daily Star, about non-Muslims supposedly being banned from...
Winterval? Bah, humbug!
Today's Guardian features an investigation into the alleged "War on Christmas", in which various council, health service, charity and education functionaries supposedly erase reference to Christmas, prevent people from putting up Christmas light displays...
Khadija’s Christmas message
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...
Mormons, Muslims and abusive polygamy
The Guardian yesterday carried a major feature on the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists who dominate two small towns in the Utah/Arizona border area: Husband and Wives gives the whole historical background, the details of the...
The Indie frees its comments pages
Via Harry's Place, it appears that the Independent has abandoned its policy of charging people to read its comments pages online. Personally I wonder if this was because most of the columnists worth reading...
Craig Murray sees himself in BBC drama
That's Me on Screen! (free registration required) Craig Murray (former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who resigned after exposing the human rights abuses carried out by "Islam Karimov" and then stood against Jack Straw) on...