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(Undercover Mosque) "Stirring up racial hatred - not the medium" |
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Here’s an interesting article.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/08/11/do1101.xml
The short version: Channel 4 in the UK aired a programme called “Undercover Mosque” which filmed undercover in radical mosques exposing the radical preachers saying things like: children should offer themselves for Islamic martyrdom, that Aids was deliberately spread in Africa by Christian missionaries who slipped it into inoculations, and in regards to a British Muslim soldier murdered by the Taliban in Afghanistan: "The hero is the one who separated his head from his shoulders." After it aired the police investigated to see if prosecutions for crimes of racial hatred could be made. Their conclusion was that no charges were to be brought against the people in the program, they did however decide that the program itself stirred up racial hatred and that the comments has been "broadcast out of context," so they’ve made an official complained to Ofcom (who regulates the media).
This is simply ridiculous!
I find this to be a good point:
”No doubt some wider context would deepen our precise understanding of these words, but they are pretty damn clear, and pretty damn nasty. Do you remember when the alleged killers of Stephen Lawrence were exposed in undercover film making horrible jokes about racist violence? I don't recall the police complaining to Ofcom about the lack of context there. “
Make a racist comment and any supposed context is likely going to be seen as irrelevant – the comment is clearly racist and/or promoting hatred. But, make a religiously-based hatred comment, and suddenly context becomes paramount, despite the comment clearly being appalling. This may not always be the case but “context” seems to be a common defence.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan