Islamic intolerance spreading to the UK

[harrybarracuda]

This is a transcript of a recent BBC radio programme. You might want to get a coffee or a cold one, it's quite long.

If you can find an audio version, I'd recommend listening to it, it's frightening that this is spreading to Londonistan and all points north, south, east and west, even Tooting.

BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

RADIO 4

TRANSCRIPT OF “FILE ON 4” – “RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE”

CURRENT AFFAIRS GROUP

TRANSMISSION: Tuesday 1st February 2011

REPORTER:
Jenny Cuffe
PRODUCER:
David Lewis
EDITOR:
David Ross




PROGRAMME NUMBER: 11VQ4867LHO

THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED
FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE
DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC
CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY.

“FILE ON 4”

Transmission:
Tuesday 1st February 2011
Repeat:

Sunday 6th February 2011

Producer:
David Lewis
Reporter:
Jenny Cuffe
Editor:

David Ross

FX CROWDS IN PAKISTAN

CUFFE:
In Pakistan, crowds celebrate a murder – glorifying the bodyguard who killed a politician because he spoke out against the blasphemy laws and
supported a Christian woman sentenced to death. Their shouts of anger stem from hatred of any opinion that differs from hard line Islamism – an intolerance some fear is already infecting communities in Britain.

BISHOP NAZRI-ALI:
I never believed that Pakistan would become extremist in the sort of way it seems to have. But it has happened, and what can happen there can
happen anywhere. I would not be complacent.

CUFFE:
In File on 4 we report on religious tensions here in Britain: the Christian pastor assaulted because his gospel show offended some listeners, the
mosque which puts worshippers through a body scanner before allowing them in, for fear of attack, and the scholar whose abusive remarks broadcast from a London studio are blamed for the death of 64 Iraqis in a suicide bomb.

NASEER DEEN:
One doesn’t want to have the freedom of speech curtailed in any way, but what I feel – and those in our community feel – that we are
tolerating an intolerance, and that we need to be intolerant of intolerance.

KHALID:
Some of the extremist Muslim people, they put posters on the wall. Mention Jihad, they said if you kill this person you straightaway go to the
heaven.

CUFFE:
So your name was on a poster?

KHALID:
Yes.

CUFFE:
And they were inviting people to kill you?

KHALID:
Yes.

CUFFE:
Khalid is a Christian from Pakistan. He doesn’t tell his neighbours the story of what happened to him in his home town, because he can’t be sure
he’ll be safe, even now that he’s here in the UK. His troubles began four years ago, when he was 22 and working for a financial company in Pakistan. Colleagues, determined to convert him to Islam, introduced him to a Muslim woman and he got married, but almost at once regretted his decision.

KHALID:
They said, why don't you go to Mosque? I said, I can’t. After three or four months I gave her a divorce because her mother forced me to do
that and now I was in danger because she said, I am going to put you in blasphemy law. They put a fatwa against me. One of the mullah, he said if he came back in Islam within three days, then he is going to be okay otherwise he’s a mur….

CUFFE:
That means you are liable to be killed?

KHALID:
Yes, yes.

CUFFE:
As well as accusing Khalid of blasphemy, his in-laws – who were now set on getting hold of his property – made other charges against him and he
says the police accepted their word without question. His aunt realised that the whole family was now in danger.

AUNT:
I saw in newspaper, they wrote about Khalid, and one of my friends rang and they said that they saw a poster on the wall for Khalid, so then … that
open invitation to everyone to kill him quickly came in my mind, this is not only for Khalid but the rest of the family as well. I took Khalid different places to keep him safe until he flew to UK. Then they know and they sent police to my home to ask about him. Many times they took other family members to the police station and tortured them. They said, ‘Bring him back in Pakistan otherwise you have to face charges they will put against us.’

ACTUALITY OF PRAYER OUTSIDE PAKISTANI HIGH COMMISSION

MAN:
God of grace, we pray, mighty Lord, that you would work in the nation of Pakistan today and tomorrow and next week and next month ….

CUFFE:
Last month, a small group of campaigners from Release International held a vigil outside the Pakistani High Commission in London. Their
president, former bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazri-Ali, was delivering a petition calling for better protection for Christians and freedom to worship. It was a response to the death penalty imposed in November on an illiterate farm worker, Aasia Bibi. She’d been ordered to fetch water, but villagers refused to drink it because it had been fetched by a non-Muslim, so she got into an argument and was then accused of blasphemy. Although the death penalty has never been carried out in Pakistan, the bishop wants the law to be repealed because he says it puts all Christians there in danger.

NAZRI-ALI:
The blasphemy law itself has been used time and again to settle personal scores, to victimise Christians, to prevent free worship, to prevent Christians living in a particular village or town. Pastors and priests have been killed. Nuns have been attacked. And I think the events surrounding the judgement on Aasia Bibi and
what happened afterwards shows that there is actually a change in the psyche of many people in Pakistan, a fundamentally different way of thinking, and people of moderate opinion are afraid to voice their opinion, and this is very dangerous because this means that the extremists have the field and their voice is the only
one quite often that is heard.

CUFFE:
Even the Government of Pakistan seems to have given way to extremists. After agreeing to amend the blasphemy laws, it has changed its mind after
pressure from Islamist groups. In his meeting with the country’s High Commissioner in London, Wajad Hasan, the Bishop argued that the rights of minorities were being trampled on. Afterwards, the High Commissioner addressed campaigners and assured them that, under existing laws, the rights of minorities would be respected.

HIGH COMMISSIONER:
The Government of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party is committed to the ideals of the founder of Pakistan, who did not mince words to declare that every Pakistani, irrespective of ones caste, creed or colour or gender will enjoy equal rights. So we share your concerns and we will do our utmost in the best possible way to provide security for the minorities and to relieve their sufferings and we will take necessary measures to ensure that no existing law is abused against them.

CUFFE:
Since the death penalty was made mandatory in Pakistan ten years ago, 892 people have been accused of blasphemy and at least 25 have been murdered. Khalid, the young man falsely accused by his mother-in-law, escaped to Britain before the case went to court and sought asylum on grounds of religious persecution.

KHALID:
First, when I go to the Home Office, they don’t understand my case. They said your case is totally false because in Pakistan Christians are very happy. If Christians are living there very happily, why have they put Shariah law there? Why have they put the blasphemy law there? UK Government don’t understand this thing. We are Christians in Pakistan, the Muslim people deal us as a Christian and in the UK, the UK Government deal us as Pakistani, and we don’t know we are Christian or Pakistani.

CUFFE:
Khalid received help from Nasir Saeed, a human rights advocate working for CLAAS - the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement. At his windowless office at the back of a draughty church in Southall, he deals with about ten such cases a year. Two years after being rejected by the Home Office, Khalid was granted asylum on appeal. But others haven’t been so fortunate.

SAEED:
It is very disappointing when Christians, you know, they fled from there and they come here to save their lives, but unfortunately the Home Office, they don’t accept them. First of all they doubt their credibility and they ask them silly questions about the Bible and their religion. The common person, they go to the
churches, they read the Bible, but it doesn’t mean that they have read theology and that they have got quite a lot of knowledge about the Bible. And the second thing, they don’t believe them they are Christians. They also doubt you have been persecuted in Pakistan, but they don’t have any system to confirm and to get this kind of information.

CUFFE:
The Home Office told File on 4 in a statement:

READER IN STUDIO:
Each application to enter or remain in the UK is fully considered on its individual merits, taking into account all relevant information.

CUFFE:
The vast majority of the million or so Pakistanis living in Britain have close ties to their home country. They’ve been watching events in Lahore with growing anxiety. Michael Nazri-Ali’s prevailing fear is that the same mood of extremism and intolerance will infect communities here.

NAZRI-ALI:
This movement of an intolerant and exclusivist vision of Islam is by definition not contained within national boundaries, in nation states. It’s not just a case of the Pakistani community, all those living in the UK can be influenced. We have known of cases where people who have declared themselves to be Christian being unable any longer to live in the neighbourhood where they were, being harassed to the point of having to leave.

CUFFE:
And who is threatening them?

NAZRI-ALI:
Well, it is extremists of different kinds. Sometimes it is relatives. I never believed that Pakistan would become extremist in the sort of way it seems to have. But it has happened. People have been bullied and cowed, and what can happen there can happen anywhere.

ACTUALITY OF CHURCH SERVICE – SINGING AND CLAPPING

CUFFE:
In saris and Sunday best, the congregation at Heston United Reformed Church in West London sing in a mixture of Urdu and Hindi, led by their pastor, the Reverend Noble Samuel.

EXTRACT FROM SERMON

SAMUEL:
… Adam and Eve. He was having fellowship with them. And that is a desire ….

CUFFE:
Today’s sermon is about bringing peace to warring factions. And it’s a heartfelt message. The Reverend Samuel presents a live gospel show and some listeners object to what he has to say.

SAMUEL:
When I was presenting programme, somebody gave me a call and he said, ‘Why are the Christians eating pork and drinking?’ I said, ‘Not only the Christians, this is a social issue and all the communities are having the drinks, even if it is prohibited, you know.’ And I said, ‘Even Islam, alcohol is prohibited in Pakistan and in Saudi Arabia, but even there people are having drinks, you know. So you cannot set a rule for Christians only.’ He said, ‘Why you took the name of Saudi Arabia because the tomb of Mohammed is there and it is very humiliating?’ And he was very furious and he threatened me on air.

CUFFE:
A few days after his live show, the Reverend Samuel was driving to the studio when someone cut in front him.

SAMUEL:
He stopped my car and he said, ‘Where is Alperton Station?’ and I was just showing the way to him and suddenly he put the hand inside and he hold my ears and he open the door, he start punching my face and he grabbed my cross. And then he took my laptop and my Bible and he was swearing badly, and then said, ‘We will break your legs if you go to the television station.’

CUFFE:
What made you think that this was an attack because of your faith, rather than just a robbery?

SAMUEL:
Because they simply said that if you go back to the television station, we will break your legs, so that was a clear sign and I was sure they are the people, those who were provoked by that programme, you know, and that’s why they attacked me. They were Asian and they were swearing in Urdu language, so I know that they were Muslim Pakistani.

CUFFE:
Two men were arrested, but the Reverend Noble decided not to pursue the matter and for a while, he stopped presenting his gospel show. And it’s not just some Pakistani Christians who feel threatened.

ACTUALITY AT MOSQUE

CUFFE:
People are now arriving for evening prayers at the London Mosque near Wimbledon, and this is very unusual for a Mosque because there is a high level of security all around. Here at the gate, at the entrance, there’s an airport style security. As they go in, people are frisked, they go through a body scanner, they have to give up their mobile phones and then they’re allowed into the mosque itself. And why that happens is because this community feel that they’re under threat from other Muslims in the UK. The Ahmaddis, whose motto is peace and tolerance, were the first Muslims to build a Mosque in London back in the 1920s. They follow a leader called Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, who claimed to be the messiah foretold by the Prophet Mohammed. For mainstream
Muslims this amounts to heresy, and in Pakistan the Ahmaddis have always been outlawed and even persecuted. Last year, along the main streets of Lahore, there were banners seeking the death of Qadianis, a derogatory term for members of the Ahmadiyya sect, and on May 28th, that threat became reality.

LUFT UR-RAHMAN:
The door of the main hall was open and we saw the guy with the gun and hand grenades on his jacket, and he was showering bullets on the people who were inside. Many people got shot. There was a guy sitting just in front of me wearing all white clothes. I cannot forget him for the whole of my life. All of a sudden he started getting red. There was all bullets around at that time.

CUFFE:
Luft ur-Rahman was attending prayers in a Mosque on the last day of a business trip to Lahore.

LUFT UR-RAHMAN:
I was sitting next to a pillar. I think that pillar gave me some cover. The attackers broke the window panels, threw some bullets on it and started throwing hand grenades inside, and on that side they were mostly elderly people who cannot walk properly or they were sitting in a chair for the prayers. There were many people who died at that time and many bodies were lying down. Many people were injured. All around blood and marks of bullets. It is difficult to express.

CUFFE:
Ninety four people were killed in attacks that day on two Ahmaddi mosques in Lahore and a group called the Tehric-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, claimed responsibility. In the same month, a British based satellite TV station – the Ummah Channel – broadcast a series of programmes where guest scholars, speaking live on air, abused the Ahmaddi’s founder as a kafir, an apostate liable to be killed. The Ahmaddis were described as filth who will try to convert the land of purity into the land of filth. After complaints, Ofcom investigated and decided that, although the comments fell short of incitement to commit a crime, taken together they amounted to abusive treatment of the religious views and beliefs of the Ahmadiyya community. The Ummah Channel issued an
unreserved apology. Luft ul-Rahman returned to Britain unhurt, but he felt the climate of opinion had changed.

LUFT UL-RAHMAN:
My family was here in the UK, I have a three year old son, my wife – they were all worried about me. I used to go regularly for business purposes
but now they don’t allow me and I can’t go back.

CUFFE:
Do you feel safe here at least in the UK?

LUFT UL-RAHMAN:
I used to feel safe. I am living here for quite a while, but now the same kind of thing has started appearing here that has started in Pakistan years
ago. And the same kind of hatred that has been imported to the UK as well, and unfortunately from Pakistan.

CUFFE:
After the Lahore massacre, the international campaign group, Human Rights Watch, called on the Pakistan Government to take immediate legal
action against Islamist extremist groups responsible for threats and violence against the Ahmadiyya religious community. It said they’d been emboldened by Government inaction.

ALI DAYAN HASAN:
The organisations that basically spearhead this kind of behaviour are organisations such as the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat. They are ideological bedfellows,
if you will, with people who have gone on to be part of a series of militant groups in Pakistan. Their long term objective is essentially to make Pakistan a theocratic state. It is to propagate a certain medieval view of Islam and what Islamic societies ought to be.

CUFFE:
Ali Dayan Hasan is the South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. His investigation shows that the umbrella group, Khatm-e-Nabuwwat, or Finality of the Prophet, is active here in Britain. Its affiliates include a headquarters in Newham and an Academy in south London, on the doorstep of the Ahmadiyya community.

ALI DAYAN HASAN:
Khatm-e-Nabuwwat is an international organisation and it certainly has a presence in the United Kingdom, of that there is little doubt. What these groups do is that they engage in on-going social coercion, in brainwashing, in inciting hatred. So the issue is what the impact of this kind of dissemination of ideologies by the
Khatm-e-Nabuwwat within the Muslim community in Britain will do for vulnerable groups within the Muslims of Britain.

CUFFE:
London Ahmaddis saw Khatm-e-Nabuwwat in operation last year.

ACTUALITY AT TOOTING BROADWAY

CUFFE:
This is a typically multicultural part of South London where every race and creed seems to live happily side by side. But that harmony was disrupted last summer when notices began to appear in shops like this one. This is a hair and cosmetics shop, and on the window there’s a sign which says ‘Deception of the Qadiani.’
Now that’s a word that the Ahmadiyya community believe is derogatory and it applies to them, and this notice says that the Ahmadiyya are non Muslims and that they follow a man who is a blasphemer against Allah. That’s highly explosive, and the Ahmadiyya believe it’s the beginning of a campaign of hatred. Inside the shop, a tall bearded man in shalwar kameez sits at the counter.

Why have you put that poster up in your window?

SHOPKEEPER:
It’s a public information, to let the Muslim community in here know the Ahmadiyya, they call them Muslims themselves, has been declared non Muslim.

CUFFE:
Do you know of the group Khatm-e-Nabuwwat?

SHOPKEEPER:
Yes.

CUFFE:
And they are active in this area?

SHOPKEEPER:
Yes, they do come and let the people know about the Qadianis and everything, yes, they do come around.

CUFFE:
And what do they say?

SHOPKEEPER:
They tell these people they are Qadianis, they are not Muslims, what they believe, and this and that. They are telling people Muslim but they are
not, basically.

CUFFE:
The same message that was written on that poster – that Ahmaddis are deceivers who should be shunned - was relayed, in stronger language, to a large audience of Muslims at a conference organised by the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Academy at the Tooting Islamic Centre.

EXTRACT FROM CONFERENCE

CUFFE:
Extracts from the conference are captured on YouTube. The preacher, a cleric called Molana Sohail Bawa, is telling his audience to keep themselves away from Ahmaddis and boycott their products. “Don’t be friends with the Qadianis”, he says, “they are trying to deceive you and convert you from Islam to disbelief.”

ACTUALITY IN BUTCHER’S SHOP

CUFFE:
For one butcher in Tooting, who doesn’t want to be named, the preacher’s message had an immediate effect. He was sacked by the employer
he’d worked for since 2007.

BUTCHER [VIA INTERPRETER]: Over a cup of tea he basically said, ‘You need to think and reassess your position, join us and become a Muslim.’ Basically the owner said to me, ‘My position is very precarious, I can’t now employ you anymore, you need to leave the job, because I’ve been told at the conference that anybody who employs an Ahmaddi, he will have a sticker or a poster put in his shop saying this person employs Ahmaddis and that won’t be tolerated by the community in Tooting.’

CUFFE:
The butcher took his case to an employment tribunal who agreed that he had been unfairly dismissed because of his religion.

READER IN STUDIO:
We find that the reason for the dismissal was that the claimant is an Ahmadiyya Muslim and that he would not convert to being a Sunni Muslim as
a condition of his continued employment.

CUFFE:
The president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in London, Nasser Deen, thinks that what Khatm-e-Nabuwwat is doing is creating a climate
of animosity that could inspire some hot head to commit an act of violence.

NASSER DEEN:
One doesn’t want to have the freedom of speech curtailed in any way, but what I feel and what I’ve and the members of our community feel, that we are tolerating an intolerance and that we need to be intolerant of intolerance, and I think generally that our society is moving to a political correctness rather than looking at the bigger picture and what’s happening.

CUFFE:
But this, of course, is a difference of religion and interpretation. To call on the boycotting of a group doesn’t amount to racial or religious hatred exactly, does it?

NASSER DEEN:
If tomorrow somebody was inciting boycott Jews, don’t go near them and have such a boycott, you can imagine how we all would feel and how the press would react. Here what we’ve got has been Muslims, it’s happening and it seems to be that the views are very different, whereas actually it’s the same. And it’s only a matter of time, I believe, before an outrage is committed here in the United Kingdom against our community.

CUFFE:
Akbar Chowdry is a convert from the Ahmadiyya faith who agreed to speak to File on 4 on behalf of Khatm-e-Nabuwwat. He says the speech made by their cleric at the Tooting Islamic Centre was an attempt to counter proselytising messages put out by the Ahmadis.

AKBER CHOWDRY:
The words were unfortunate and they did not comply with the guidelines of the Tooting Islamic Centre where this speech was held. I don't believe they are incitement. If you look into their proper context and where they come from, they are meant not to isolate or not to ostracise but to protect the Muslim community from the propaganda of a very strong organisation that thrives on that kind of propaganda.

CUFFE:
To say, ‘Don’t have anything to do with the Ahmaddis, boycott the Ahmaddis’ - what is that if not to ostracise the Ahmaddis?

AKBER CHOWDRY:
Ahmaddis are already socially ostracised. They don’t come to Muslim mosques, they have no social interaction with the Muslim community at all, so the ostracisation - if any - is from the Ahmadiyya side.

CUFFE:
Although Ahmaddis have complained to police about Khatm-e-Nabuwwat’s activities, they’ve been told that no laws have been broken. In a country that prides itself on free speech, people can be as abusive as they like, so long as they don’t incite crimes of hatred. But a climate of growing intolerance is something we
should all worry about – according to Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch.

ALI DAYAN HASAN:
It is very explosive, you see, because first you establish a theological framework where apostasy or blasphemy is punishable by death. Then you say that these people are apostates, you say these people are blasphemers. Then by implication what you’re saying is that, well, these people are fit to be killed. I think that the British Government ought to concern itself with this matter perhaps a little more. I say this very cautiously because we certainly do not want the state playing Big Brother at all. But the British Government should be carefully looking at how these groups operate and how they operate within Muslim communities.

CUFFE:
Speaking for the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Academy, Akbar Chowdry says the intention of their messages is to inform Muslims. Language is a sensitive issue and to be called a non-Muslim, to be called a deceiver, isn’t there a danger that one individual could pick this up and use that as an excuse to commit an act of violence?

AKBAR CHOWDRY:
A single individual can do whatever they want and in fact the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat is scared, is absolutely scared that a lone person may do something against the Ahmadiyyas, and in this current charged climate they are going to come and tell the media to blame us. Unfortunately in translation things do get lost …

CUFFE:
The term non-Muslim is pretty clear, isn’t it? It’s pretty clear in language. It’s not a mis-translation.

AKBAR CHOWDRY:
That they’re not Muslims is an unanimous opinion of Muslims around the world.

CUFFE:
But as you say, it’s a very sensitive thing, it is extremely explosive to use that term because when it is used it’s often associated with being
an apostate, an infidel, and fatwahs are made because of this.

AKBAR CHOWDRY:
Yeah, but you have to put the words in context. I’m sure there are Muslims who have left Islam in the UK in the past – they have not had fatwahs issued against them, they have not been killed. We should understand that things in a Muslim majority country like Iran or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, things are different and I
doubt very very much that anybody would issue a fatwah here saying that a non-Muslim should be killed. If I were to say to somebody that, based on this belief you may not be a Muslim, is that incitement? How far do you want to stretch this, you know?

CUFFE:
Last autumn, Members of Parliament held a debate on the plight of the Ahmaddis in Pakistan and raised concerns about recent events in south London. And the Parliamentary Human Rights Group went on a fact finding mission to Pakistan, paid for by the Ahmadiyya community. Introducing their report, Lord Avebury,
the group’s vice–chair, wrote that in the UK, extremists were inciting hatred against Ahmaddis and events in Pakistan should serve as a wake-up call to those who defend religious freedom and tolerance.

LORD AVEBURY:
I think we need a complete review of the hate laws. I mean, in 2006 Parliament passed legislation outlawing religious and racial hatred and that is
now part of the Public Order Act, but it has proved to be ineffective because there’s been only one prosecution and that failed. If you look at the attacks on television channels, you look at things that are said in rallies which you would say would constitute incitement, the Crown Prosecution Service don’t find that the law gives them the power to bring these people to court, so therefore the law is inadequate, because certainly the things that are said are very extreme.

CUFFE:
So what do you think is the weakness of the legislation?

LORD AVEBURY:
I think probably it’s because the prosecution needs to prove two things. First of all that the words used do constitute incitement to religious hatred, and secondly that the person using these words intended them to incite religious hatred. It’s very difficult to prove something that goes on in a person’s mind as being part of the offence.

CUFFE:
For those brought up in a secular society, it may be hard to understand the depth of emotion caused by words such as non-Muslim or infidel. But although Maha Azzam, a fellow at Chatham House and an advisor on political Islam, says this type of language causes deep hurt, she doesn’t believe that’s an argument for
censorship.

MAHA AZZAM:
If someone questions core aspects of belief between different religions or within a religion, theological debates ensue and sentiments run high. The issue here is that in a country like Britain, where the Muslim community feels it’s defending its position over a number of issues – political, those to do with identity, then
issues to do with core aspects of belief, the whole situation and tensions become heightened.

CUFFE:
And is there a danger that then it becomes more than just a theological argument and perhaps heated rhetoric and spills over into violence?

MAHA AZZAM:
Of course there is that danger. So checks have to be placed very early on against the resort to violence, but we have to be able to distinguish between community leaders educating their community as to what they believe Islam is about, and to distinguish between that and incitement to violence.

CUFFE:
For its part, the Home Office tells us in a statement:

READER IN STUDIO:
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone has the freedom to live their lives free from far fear of targeted hostility or harassment on the grounds of a particular characteristic. We’re fully aware that this type of crime is under-reported, which is why we’re working with police and the Crown Prosecution
Service towards improving the recording of hate crime offences.

CUFFE:
Many politicians and members of the public defend freedom of speech as almost sacrosanct. And you only have to look at Pakistan’s blasphemy
laws to see the perils of curtailing that freedom. But the case of a controversial cleric in London shows how powerful and dangerous words can be.

ACTUALITY IN HABIB’S STUDIO

MAN:
Did we have to do any cuts on this one?

MAN 2:
No, no.

MAN:
He recorded one hour.

MAN 2:
No, 25 minutes.

MAN:
Oh, was it 25 minutes?

CUFFE:
A non-descript industrial unit off the North Circular is used as a studio for a group called Alqatrah, led by a Shia scholar from Kuwait. While someone delivers a lecture to camera upstairs, on the ground floor two young men are editing. The scholar at the centre of Alqatrah is Yasser al-Habib, and with a broadcast from
this studio to the Middle East, he’s managed to outrage not only Sunni Muslims but his own Shia brothers. In fact, the remarks he made, condemning the wife of the prophet, Aisha, have been blamed for a suicide bomb in Iraq last November which killed 64 Shias. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, saying the attacks were to avenge al-Habib’s insults against Aisha. In London, Sunnis protested in Hyde Park against the broadcast.

ACTUALITY OF RALLY

MAN:
They call him his Eminence, his grace, the great scholar Yasser al-Habib ….

CUFFE:
The rally was organized by the Committee Defending the Prophet’s Honour in Britain.

ACTUALITY AT RALLY

MAN:
Allah Akbar!

CROWD:
Allah Akbar!

MAN:
Allah Akbar!

CROWD:
Allah Akbar!

MAN:
Aisha! Aisha ….

CUFFE:
The group reported Yasser al-Habib to the police, complaining that he had incited sectarian unrest and angered the Sunni Muslims in Britain to boiling point. Mohammed al Hilli is a respected Shia scholar from North London. He believes the cleric was playing into the hands of extremists when he made his comments on Aisha and the rally was an inevitable response.

AL HILLI:
The few people who did attend used his statements to justify, for example, their belief that the Shias are non-Muslims because, according to this individual, they abused the wife of the prophet. And hence what we find is those who are benefitting from such statements are the extremists themselves. Many grand Ayatollahs, jurists in the Shia world, condemned his statements and issued edicts or fatwahs against what he was saying. At the same time you’ll find that some of the Sunni world also came out and supported the Shia opinion that the Shias themselves are not necessarily of this opinion, but unfortunately some elements, they came out with statements like this is a reflection of the Shia opinion and hence we have to be careful about how we deal with them. So in a sense it
was fuel really to the people who wanted to create dissension.

CUFFE:
Yasser al-Habib has been effectively disowned by his fellow Shia Muslims and says that Kuwait has stripped him of his citizenship, making him
stateless. But he’s not at all contrite.

YASSER AL-HABIB:
I believe that if I use a clear language it will cause some shocks, but in the final way it will give the majority of Muslims and others a clear
image about history and religion.

CUFFE:
In this case, people say it led to the deaths of 64 Shias in Baghdad.

YASSER AL-HABIB:
Well this is a false, because everyone knows that al-Qaeda starts killing Shias and others many years ago and they are continuing, so I am not
responsible for that at all.

CUFFE:
But at a time when feelings run high and there are religious tensions, surely your language only adds fuel to the fire?

YASSER AL-HABIB:
If we supress issues it will cause more tension in the future. If we did not give the opposition the rights to say what they believe and what they want, that will cause tension. The lack of debate in the Muslim society created the extremist groups like al-Qaeda and others.

CUFFE:
The historic split between Sunni and Shia Muslims is played out in countries like Iraq and Pakistan with tragic consequences - a deadly game of tit for tat. Although the political climate here in the UK is completely different, Mohammed al-Hilli believes friction between the two is growing.

AL-HILLI:
We find at the moment there is a rise of extremism within both sects but the extremist elements within both Sunnis and Shias do not represent the mainstream opinion of these two groups. If the Imams or the scholars don’t rise to the challenge and ensure that these extremist elements and those who are propagating and encouraging hatred and animosity between the different groups, they’re not highlighted and they’re not brought forward as potential dangers to Muslims living happily and co-existently in this country, then we will find this matter escalating in the future and leading to potential
problems and something that we all want to avoid. Thankfully at the moment there aren’t any violent interchanges between the different groups, simply because everyone feels that they are protected under the law of the land, but at the same time I think it’s naïve to think that if these types of practices, by both groups, are not stamped on, something in the future won’t happen.

CUFFE:
In a country where Muslims feel themselves marginalised, and where even a government minister says Islamaphobia has become respectable, Mohammed al-Hilli says Muslims may be reluctant to air their differences. But he believes the only way to stop the spread of sectarian intolerance is to acknowledge its
potential for harm.

AL HILLI:

There may be voices within the Muslim community who will come out and say that by discussing this subject we are actually causing further division within the Muslim community itself. The problem is by overlooking at it and not examining the causes of the difficulties that we find sometimes between the different groups of thought, we’re only leaving it to pile up and it may erupt in the future. Therefore a calm intellectual discussion is very much welcome, one that involves all groups and all parties so that future generations are ambassadors of their religion which advocates peace, happiness and co-existence.

SIGNATURE TUNE

[the dogcatcher]

So they are now intolerant of what they percieve as our intolerence, and we are intolerent of their intolerance to our intolerance....
See where we're going here.

[Jesus Jones]

Destabilization in the Middle East that's where it's going. Just as the UK want it and as it has been planned for decades in places such as Egypt.

[the dogcatcher]

Think I buy more oil.

[billy the kid]

they really all need to sit down and drink a few Leo's.
good for the soul.