ninme

Catching up on my reading.

Sunday Telegraph – Stirring up racial hatred – not the medium. By Charles Moore

So, you all saw the program, and have probably heard by now that the people in it said they were taken out of “context”…

As a result of all this, people, including, I believe, local MPs, asked the police to investigate the preachers to see if prosecutions for crimes of racial hatred could be brought against them. C4 itself did not ask for these investigations, but co-operated with police inquiries.

But then, on Wednesday, without any warning to Channel 4, the CPS and the West Midlands police issued their fatwa. Not only had they investigated, and decided, as they were entitled to do, that there were no charges to bring against people featured in the programme: they also announced that they had investigated the programme itself for stirring up racial hatred.

Again, they had decided not to press charges. But, said West Midlands police smugly, they had pursued the making of the programme “with as much rigour as the extremism portrayed within the documentary itself”. They had concluded that comments had been “broadcast out of context” and so they and the CPS had complained to Ofcom.

They did not acknowledge, by the way, that at several points in the programme, the organisations and individuals concerned are given a right of reply, or that several moderate Muslim experts explain on air why they think the remarks shown are extreme. Do the West Midlands police side with Islamists against moderates?

Nice point.