If you don’t believe in God, why don’t you go around behaving selfishly and badly? So ha.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Joan Smith Defends Channel 4
Aug 15th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonChannel 4 was right to investigate Wahhabi influence in British mosques.… Read the rest
Review of The Islamist
Aug 15th, 2007 | By Max DunbarEd Husain is a busy man. He is working on a PhD, and his book The Islamist has generated a huge amount of copy and follow-up work. Earlier this year, going home on the train after a tranche of interviews, he got a call from an old Muslim friend.
… Read the rest‘Salam Alaikum!’ I said. ‘How are you?’ My friend was in no mood for niceties. He was blunt and sharp as he warned me to stay away from a particular London mosque: ‘You won’t escape safely. Do you hear?’
I was perplexed. All week Muslim ‘community leaders’ had been rapping me on the knuckles for attacking, in my book, those who managed the mosque and its various octopus-like arms. ‘They’ve changed,
He dies without seeing peace in Somalia
Aug 15th, 2007 11:00 am | By Ophelia Benson… Read the restPress freedom groups worldwide expressed horror at the “savage” killings of two prominent Somali journalists on 11 August 2007…Six journalists have been killed in Somalia so far this year, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ). “This wave of attack of killing and injuring media people is an intentionally organised mission to silence [the] journalistic voice in Somalia,” the union said…CBC News said HornAfrik has criticised both the government and the militant Islamic opposition, and has been shut down several times in the past few months. Reuters said the station was shelled in April, apparently from Ethiopian positions…In 2002 Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) gave its International Press Freedom Award to Sharmarke and
Violence Against Women in Punjab
Aug 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonStatistics compiled by the HRCP: 172 cases of honour killing were reported in Punjab in 2003.… Read the rest
Freeman Dyson on the Need for Heretics
Aug 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonExperts who talk publicly about contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think.… Read the rest
Rorty’s Solution to a Basic Philosophical Question
Aug 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHis critique of universalism constituted a liberation but left no alternative to moral ethnocentrism. … Read the rest
The Bible is Crap Literature
Aug 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Good Book is not, as is so often suggested, a damn good read. It’s crap.… Read the rest
Ex-Muslim ‘Foments Sectarian Antagonism’
Aug 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAccording to the AP, anyway.… Read the rest
The West Midlands Censorship Bureau
Aug 13th, 2007 5:48 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service issued a joint statement condemning Undercover Mosque and announcing that the West Midlands Police had referred the documentary to Ofcom. The cops wanted the programme makers prosecuted for stirring up racial hatred. They seem to be slightly confused.
… Read the rest[T]he real story should have been about the alarmingly censorial and quite possibly libellous attack on investigative journalism. No matter, on Radio 4’s PM programme, it was Dispatches’ commissioning editor Kevin Sutcliffe who was subjected to a grilling, while Abu Usamah, one of the subjects of the documentary, was portrayed as a harmless victim…[H]ere is Usamah spreading his message of inter-communal respect and understanding, as captured in Undercover Mosque: ‘No one
Do the West Midlands Police Side with Islamists?
Aug 13th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Islamic state envisaged is not an ideal kingdom of heaven where the lion shall lie down with the lamb. … Read the rest
The Police as TV Critics – Thumbs Down
Aug 13th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHad anyone asked the police for specific examples to justify their grand claim, they would have been left wanting.… Read the rest
Imams OK, Reporters All Wrong
Aug 13th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCharges will not be brought against kuffar-hating clerics, but police report Channel 4 to Ofcom.… Read the rest
Mohammed Shafiq is Outraged
Aug 13th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Channel 4 should apologise immediately for the hurt they have caused those people.’… Read the rest
Channel 4’s Kevin Sutcliffe Replies
Aug 13th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe speakers were shown making abhorrent comments in mainstream Islamic institutions.… Read the rest
Why Are the Cops Collaring TV?
Aug 13th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUndercover Mosque was great journalism. That the CPS thought it incited racial hatred beggars belief.… Read the rest
Police Investigate ‘Undercover Mosque’
Aug 13th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Community leaders’ were ‘enraged’ by Channel 4 documentary.… Read the rest
Another Swift, another Pope, another Wilde
Aug 12th, 2007 4:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonGood grief, as if I don’t have enough to do, now I’m having to fend off the ravings of a reader who seems to have suddenly gone stark raving mad. Although there was, to be sure, always a whiff of madness…But now it’s more like an old overfull garbage can at the end of a hot August day. He’s pissed off because I wrote something (something very brief) about Ehsan Jami the other day; he’s been bombarding me with emails telling me how awful he thinks Jami is; the one he sent today was so rude and condescending and aggressive that I became irritated as well as bored, and told him to stop lecturing me. He sent an even ruder … Read the rest
Good people here, bad people there
Aug 12th, 2007 3:49 pm | By Ophelia BensonShiraz Maher escaped from Hizb ut-Tahrir
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Islamism transcends cultural norms, so it not only prompted me to reject my British identity but also my ethnic South Asian background. I was neither eastern, nor western; I was a Muslim, a part of the global ummah, where identity is defined through the fraternity of faith. Islamists insist this identity is not racist because Islam welcomes people of all colours, ethnicities and backgrounds. That was true, but our world view was still horribly bipolar. We didn’t distinguish on the basis of colour, but on creed. The world was simply divided into believers and nonbelievers.
Identity defined through the ‘fraternity of faith’ is not racist, good, but it does divide the world simply … Read the rest
Our World View Was Still Horriby Bipolar
Aug 12th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘We didn’t distinguish on the basis of colour, but on creed. The world was simply divided into believers and nonbelievers.’… Read the rest