CHANNEL 4 JOIN CRUSADE AGAINST MUSLIMS

Press Release 10th August 1999.

Last nights Channel 4 Special Dispatch's program entitled 'Kill or be Killed' was yet another unmitigated attack against Islam and Muslims. In it, the would-be objective reporter Deborah Davies managed to dig up all the old stereotypes of Muslims being blood-thirsty terrorists and extremists intent on killing everyone, even innocent men, women and children, in order to propagate their religion. Not content to portray certain leaders within the Muslim community as villains the program went as far as to completely fabricate a speech given by Sheikh Abu Hamza, Imam of Finsbury Park Mosque, in which he is reported to have called for the killing of innocent civilians in the UK.

Despite this rhetoric which is almost characteristic of the British Media, who evidently have no thirst for the truth but rather an insatiable thirst for sensationalism and distortion of reality in order to gain viewing figures, Islam still remains the fastest growing ideology in the West and especially among young British women. The reality is that it is the efforts of Leaders and scholars within the Muslim community such as Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad (the Amir of Al-Muhajiroun and Judge of The Shari'ah Court of The UK) who have laid down the seeds for an intellectual revolution in Britain by presenting Islam not as the traditional perception of it as a fanatic dogmatic doctrine closed to discourse and debate but rather as an alternative system of life which caters for all of mankind's basic needs and which protected the life, belief, honour, mind and wealth of most of mankind for over 1300 years.

In fact the holding of a conference at the Royal Albert Hall on the 19th of September entitled 'The Citizen of The Khilafah' is intended to highlight how life could potentially be like for millions of British Citizens if Islam was implemented as a ruling, economic, social and judicial system and how Islam, far from being anti-life is very much pro-life in that everyone, no matter if they are Muslim or non-Muslim, will be treated equally under the law, with the same rights to welfare and protection etc…

To add insult to injury the program makers at Channel 4 decided to go to a wholly unrepresentative Sufi sect for comments on Islamic movements they know very little or nothing about seeing as they spend most if not all of their time in remembrance of Allah within the confines of a mosque with absolutely no interaction with the society at large! If instead they had sought to seek the opinion of any qualified Islamic scholar (which incidentally excludes those paid to remain silent by Saudi Arabia) they would have found that the quotes which are verified as coming from Sheikh Omar, for example, such as that it is an obligation for every Muslim male to train for Jihad and that it is also an obligation for all Muslims to engage in Jihad to defend their land have a firm foundation in the Qur'an and the Sayings and actions of the Messenger Muhammad (saw).

It is indeed unfortunate that an opportunity to clarify some of the misconceptions held by the British public instead of being removed were enforced by this pathetic attempt at objective journalism. Specially insensitive to the feelings and emotions of the Muslim community in Britain was the airing of this program just after news that 8 innocent Muslims were meted out prison sentences in Yemen for alleged crimes they never committed upon evidence of confessions beaten out of them. Not only were Muslim leaders in Britain linked to those alleged crimes but it was taken as fact that the Muslims abroad had committed the crimes they were accused of despite their protestations of innocence and torture. The double standards and complicity of both the media and the British government, when compared to the treatment of other cases such as that of the two British nurses in Saudi Arabia is glaringly obvious for all to see.

However the Muslim community will not be cajoled into remaining silent at the oppression of governments both here in the West and elsewhere in the world no matter how our activities are portrayed and no matter what we suffer in terms of insult or injury for as Muslims we have firm conviction that we carry the truth from our Lord and that the spread of Islam and the re-establishment of the Islamic Sate is an inevitability for which we are obliged to work and for which in return God will grant us eternal paradise, Insha'Allah (God willing).

May Allah (swt) protect us all from the conspiracies of the Kuffar and guide us all to the truth and justice of Islam. Mr. Anjem Choudary - Spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun