KJ wrote:
> Steve Greene wrote:
>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1955818/Channel-4-wins-Muslim-'preachers-of-hate'-case.html
>>
>>
>> Police and prosecutors have paid out a six-figure sum for wrongly
>> claiming a television exposé of Islamist extremists was faked.
>>
>> The Crown Prosecution Service and West Midlands Police will apologise
>> "unreservedly" at a High Court hearing today for libelling Channel 4's
>> Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque.
>>
>> Legal sources said they will pay £50,000 damages and £50,000 costs for
>> falsely claiming the documentary was "misleading" and would stir up
>> racial hatred.
>>
>> The documentary, screened last year, showed "preachers of hate" making
>> remarks alleged to be homophobic, anti-Semitic and .ist.
>> Police were called in to investigate the clerics, but after six months
>> dropped the inquiry and turned on Channel 4, asking prosecutors whether
>> they could be charged for stirring up racial hatred.
>>
>> The CPS then issued a joint statement claiming the programme had
>> distorted the views of the clerics by misleading editing. They also said
>> it risked undermining "community cohesion''.
>>
>> Ofcom, the television regulator, rejected the complaints, triggering an
>> avalanche of criticism of the police handling of the case and their
>> pursuit of Muslim extremists.
>>
>> West Midlands Police and the CPS refused to withdraw their remarks,
>> leading Channel 4 to sue for libel.
>>
>> Police and the CPS will accept at court that they were wrong and that
>> there was "no evidence that the broadcaster or programme makers had
>> misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or
>> incite criminal activity".
>>
>> Television chiefs attacked the authorities for trying to "publicly
>> rubbish them" and said they had been right for exposing the "abhorrent
>> and extreme comments of fundamentalist preachers".
>>
>> Kevin Sutcliffe, the deputy head of current affairs at Channel 4, who
>> oversees Dispatches, said: "This is a total vindication of the programme
>> team in exposing extreme views being preached in mainstream British
>> mosques.
>>
>> "The programme's findings were clearly a matter of important public
>> interest.
>>
>> "The authorities should be doing all they can to encourage
>> investigations like this, not attempting to publicly rubbish them for
>> reasons they have never properly explained."
>>
>> Julian Bellamy, the head of Channel 4, added: "It was clearly vital to
>> us that an important piece of journalism and the reputation of its
>> makers was not undermined by these unjustified allegations."
>>
>> The damages will be donated to a charity for the families of journalists
>> killed while on assignment.
>>
>> In its report last year, Ofcom said that "each and every quote was
>> justified by the narrative of the programme and put fully in context".
>>
>> One cleric in Birmingham said the killer of a British Muslim soldier in
>> Afghanistan was a "hero of Islam''.
>>
>> Other comments from individuals included that "Allah created the woman
>> deficient", that homo.uals should be thrown off mountains and that
>> young girls should be hit if they do not wear hijab.
>
>
> Don't the BNP advocate that women are second rate citizens and should
> stay at home to ease the employment problem and have babies, that
> homo.uals are deviants and should be outlawed and that young girls
> should be hit if they do wear a hijab.
suddenly it all becomes clear.. never seen the BNP and the muslim
community together.. the logic is obvious _they are one and the same_
bet someone, probbly MI5 has pictures of them changing in a phonebox
somewhere.. |