‘Preachers of hate’ must be exposed – by fiddling the evidence, apparently

Joan SmithPredictably, Joan Smith joins in the defence of Channel 4’s discredited “Undercover Mosque” documentary:

“The Channel’s real offence, I suspect, lies in drawing attention to the idiocy of government ministers who have a history of accepting self-appointed ‘community leaders’ as representatives of millions of law-abiding Muslims who do not go to mosques; even worse, they have failed to inquire closely enough into the kind of Islam which is being preached and promoted there.”

Independent, 14 August 2007

See also Steve Hewlett in the Guardian, 13 August 2007 and the Organ Grinder, 13 August 2007

The West Midlands Police and Crown Prosecution Service, who accused the programme makers of distorting the evidence, did so on the basis of having examined 56 hours of film footage, so you might have thought they’d be rather better placed to make a judgement on the issue of distortion than the above commentators, who of course have seen only the carefully edited snippets included in the original programme. But never let an objective evaluation of the evidence get in the way of a bit of anti-Muslim bigotry, eh? So much for “Enlightenment values”.

For an alternative view, see Media Workers Against the War, 10 August 2007