Last year Channel 4 broadcasted a documentary showing that several British mosques employed radical preachers condemning democracy and integration and praising the Taliban for killing British soldiers. This lead immediatedly to a police investigation, not of the preachers involved, but of Channel 4 itself for supposedly inciting racial hatred. Last week this came to a head, after a libel procedure Channel 4 had launched against the West Midland Police and Crown Prosecution Service went to court, and the court found in favour of Channel 4. Long before that verdict the police had given up prosecution, yet did not withdraw their accusations. Odd behaviour and it has reportedly cost them a six figure settlement.
So what caused this strange behaviour? Might it just be the Saudi connection established in the documentary:
He captures chilling sermons in which Saudi-trained preachers proclaim the supremacy of Islam, preach hatred for non-Muslims and for Muslims who do not follow their extreme beliefs – and predict a coming jihad. “An army of Muslims will arise,” announces one preacher. Another preacher said British Muslims must “dismantle” British democracy – they must “live like a state within a state” until they are “strong enough to take over.”
The investigation reveals Saudi Arabian universities are recruiting young Western Muslims to train them in their extreme theology, then sending them back to the West to spread the word. And the Dispatches reporter discovers that British Muslims can ask for fatwas, religious rulings, direct from the top religious leader in Saudi Arabia, the Grand Mufti.
The British government after all has shown a willingness to drop investigations in a major corruption scandal because the Saudis told them to, so harassing the makers of a documentary unfavourable to Saudi Arabia is not beyond the realm of possibilities…
Hattip: Aaronovitch watch.