[Pajamas Media] Mike McNally - "Undercover Mosque: The Return," part of UK Channel 4's "Dispatches" series, was a follow-up to an investigation last year in which preachers in a number of British mosques were filmed making anti-Semitic and homophobic remarks, and extolling the virtues of terrorism. The new investigation focused on one of the mosques featured in the 2007 program, the Regent's Park Mosque in central London. It found that, despite promises by the mosque authorities to take action against the extremists, nothing much had changed. An undercover reporter - herself a Muslim - filmed female preachers calling on worshippers to kill non-believers and Jews, and ordering them not to associate with people from other religions. The mosque's bookshop was continuing to sell DVDs featuring extremist clerics calling on Muslims to wage jihad. It's one thing listening to male preachers spouting hatred - those raving madmen with their Rasputin beards. It's something else to hear soft-spoken teenage girls with London accents debating whether a homosexual should simply be stoned to death, or be thrown off a cliff and then stoned to death. If this is what's going on in the ladies' wing, you have to wonder what the men are up to. The program revealed that the religious authorities in Saudi Arabia were responsible for training the extremist preachers, and for supplying books and other teaching material. The Saudis have been spending tens of millions of pounds exporting their Wahhabist brand of Islam around the world, and, outside of Pakistan, it's hard to imagine there's a country in which they've enjoyed the kind of success they're having in Britain.
2008-09-19 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive