Gay Morrocco and Koranic anti-gay interpretations

News about 'Outrage sweeping across Morocco' following a gay association's announcement of a planned seminar on sexual problems led me to the video below.

The video tells the story of a gay couple's 'marriage', celebrated traditionally by their families and echoing centuries of actual Muslim tolerance of homosexuality.

It dramatically contradicts the news story which plies the same mythical line that certain churches and politicians in African states like Uganda have that "homosexuals have been attempting to infiltrate Moroccan culture".

It claims that "Moroccan authorities are in a very awkward situation since they are torn between European pressure and Morocco's conservative community".

Well good. The more pressure the better. As the video makes clear, you either support basic human rights or you don't. 'Culture' is no defence.

What's more, as with women's rights, it is not a case of 'change cannot happen because the Koran is clear'. The video explains how it's simply how it's interpreted - much like the bible - and some aspects highlighted and others ignored. Again, 'culture' is no defence' - and culture is not immutable.

This argument reflects those of the small but profoundly significant 'renaissance' movement amongst Muslims opposed to the likes of Saudi's Wahabbi's and Iran's rulers, saying there is another way. A movement which we're hear far too little about, instead we hear about zealots like Anjem Choudary.

HOMOSEXUALITY in MOROCCO & in ISLAM (part 1 - 5)

• Moroccan gay organisation Kifkif

Another shameful expulsion by UK Home Office

A gay Iraqi man due for deportation tomorrow has been told by the UK Border Agency to conduct his relationships "in private" on his return to Iraq, where homosexuality is punishable by death.

Campaign group Iraqi LGBT says the asylum seeker will become the seventh gay Iraqi to be returned to the country by the UK, despite the country being one of only nine in the world where homosexual people are executed.

Though a ruling was made in September 2007 allowing two gay Iraqis to remain in the UK, campaigners working on behalf of the man facing deportation tomorrow say his case was held too long ago to benefit from the change in case law achieved in 2007.

Keith Best, the director of the Immigration Advisory Service, told the Guardian that the government ought to give the asylum seeker a fresh hearing.

The United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) has said that the man's homosexuality did not form the basis of his original asylum application in 2001 and that his subsequent conviction for seeking to stay in the country illegally makes him an untrustworthy defendant, undermining his claim to be gay.

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrats' housing spokeswoman, who is the Iraqi's MP, is perplexed by a recommendation from the UKBA that the Iraqi conduct his relationships in private.

The document says: "Even if your client's homosexuality were to be established it is viewed that it would be possible for your client to conduct such relationships in private on his return to Iraq. This would allow your client to express his sexuality, albeit in a more limited way than he could do elsewhere."

Teather, the MP for Brent East, said: "Immigration ministers need to show some humanity. If this deportation goes ahead there is a terrible risk that this man will be killed. How can we possibly claim to be a country that values human rights if we are willing to endanger a life in this way?"

Best said: "This is an incredible position. They [the UKBA] cannot say that on the one hand they do not believe him to be homosexual and then recommend ways in which he can cover up his homosexuality."

In September 2007 two gay victims of attempted assassination attempts by Shia Islamist death squads in Iraq were granted asylum in the UK after having their initial applications turned down by the Home Office despite compelling evidence of homophobic persecution.

That case overturned the claim that national governments did not recognise homophobic persecution as a legitimate ground for asylum under the 1951 refugee convention.

Homosexuality has been punishable by death in Iraq since 2001, when Saddam Hussein's government amended the country's penal code. The move was thought to be an overture to the country's Islamic conservatives, whose support Saddam latterly tried to win.
Iraqi LGBT says that more than 430 gay men have been murdered in Iraq since 2003. Safe houses are reported to operate in Baghdad in which some 40 young gay men hide.

The asylum seeker is scheduled to leave the UK tomorrow on an 8.30am flight but this may be delayed since the government has yet to reply to the representations made on his behalf and he cannot be deported until that point.

Source

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Email Jacqui Smith.

Support Iraqi-LGBT

The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to communicate information about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world.

Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of honour killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses and food), and assist efforts help them seek asylum abroad. Donations to Iraqi LGBT are not tax-deductible for income tax purposes.

See more about the situation of LGBT in Iraq - watch The Sexual Cleansing of Iraq.

Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji

Two of my heroes on stage together. Fabulous.



Irshad Manji: 'Osama bin Ladens worst nightmare'

This women and this stuff is really important.

• Islamic Renaissance
• An Islamic renaissance
• Oprah brings taboo topics to Middle East!

"He will make Cheney look like Ghandi"

This is the most powerful anti-McCain viral I've yet seen. I hope it really builds an audience.

Titled 'Republicans and military men on John McCain' it's produced by Aaron Hodgins Davis. Help the virality by digging it here.

SCOTT RITTER: The Bush Administration has built a new generation of nuclear weapons that we call "usable" nukes. [TEXT: Cochran statement.] And they have a nuclear, you know, posture now which permits the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in a non-nuclear environment if the Commander-in-Chief deems US forces to be at significant risk.

If we start bombing Iran, I'm telling you right now it's not gonna work

McCAIN: Bomb Iran? Heh-heh. [singing, to tune of Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann"] Bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, heh-heh.

RITTER: My concern is that we will use nuclear weapons to break the backbone of Iranian resistance, and it may not work. But what it will do is this: it will unleash the nuclear genie. So to all those Americans out there tonight who say, "You know what? Taking on Iran's a good thing,"

McCAIN: My friends, I know how to handle the Iranians, and I'll handle them.

RITTER: And if we use nuclear weapons, the genie ain't going back in the bottle until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation. So tell me, you want to go to war with Iran: Pick your city. Pick your city. Tell me which one you want gone. Seattle? LA? Boston? New York, Miami? Pick one! Because at least one's going.

And that's something we should all think about before we march down this path of insanity [repeating "insanity" as pictures flash on screen.]

We [may] use nuclear weapons to brake the backbone of Iranian resistance and it may not work, but what it will do is this: it will unleash the nuclear genie, and so for all those Americans out there that say taking on Iran is a good thing…if we take on Iran we’re going to use nuclear weapons, and if we use nuclear weapons the genie ain’t going back in the bottle until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation, so…pick your city!”

The Obama=Muslim smear: The London connection

The Washington Post carries a feature about attempting to discover who started the Obama=Muslim smear which has anything up to 13% of Americans convinced.

Danielle Allen, a scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study, soon discovered that it wouldn't be easy to source the emails but also that 'virality' takes serious work.

While Allen was already an expert on the mechanics of politics, she fast began to learn the mechanics of the Internet. She discovered, for instance, that the recipe for launching a chain e-mail attack is not as simple as typing it up and hitting the send button to a long list of recipients. It takes effort to seed a chain mail that spreads as widely as the Obama missive, explained Jeff Bedser, president of the Internet Crimes Group, a company that helps corporations battle such broadsides. "Lighting that fire, getting something to have momentum, takes work," he said.

Obama's unusual background, blackness and name helped.

Allen discovered that theories about Obama's religious background had circulated for many years on the Internet. And that the man who takes credit for posting the first article to assert that the Illinois senator was a Muslim is Andy Martin.

Martin, a former political opponent of Obama's, is the publisher of an Internet newspaper who sends e-mails to his mailing list almost daily. He said in an interview that he first began questioning Obama's religious background after hearing his famous keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. In an Aug. 10, 2004, article, which he posted on Web sites and e-mailed to bloggers, he said that Obama had concealed his Muslim heritage. "I feel sad having to expose Barack Obama," Martin wrote in an accompanying press release, "but the man is a complete fraud. The truth is going to surprise, and disappoint, and outrage many people who were drawn to him. He has lied to the American people, and he has sought to misrepresent his own heritage." Martin's article did not suggest an association between Obama and radical Islam.

Martin was trying to launch a Senate bid against Obama when he says he first ran the Democrat's name by a contact in London. "They said he must be a Muslim. That was interesting to me because it was an angle that nobody had covered. We started looking. As a candidate you learn how to harness the Internet. You end up really learning how to work the street. I sort of picked this story up as a sideline." Martin said the primary basis for his belief was simple -- Obama's father was a Muslim. In a defamation lawsuit he filed against the New York Times and others several months ago, Martin says that Obama "eventually became a Christian" but that "as a matter of Islamic law began life as a Muslim" due to his father's religion.

But Martin was a false lead, a 'seed', as were others.

Where Allen kept coming back to was a libertarian conservative website, based in California, Free Republic - who are already in full paranoia mode with Allen's analysis' publication.

To: plangent; Grampa Dave; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Dog; EternalVigilance; Congressman Billybob; ...

Sifting through hundreds of postings, she began to piece together their identities.

And if Obama gets elected. FReeRepublic will be on their "Enemies List".

7 posted on 28 June 2008 16:11:36 by BOBTHENAILER (One by one, in small groups or in whole armies, we don't care how we do it, but we're gonna getcha)

But which 'freeper' did it? We still don't know. Here's where Allen's trail ends and what she learnt about how this really got off the ground.

Another Free Republic participant who attracted Allen's interest went by the handle "Eva." She was one of the first to write on the site about Obama's religion -- in November 2006 she began repeating the phrase "Once a Muslim, always a Muslim," when discussing Obama.

With the help of Allen's biographical sketch, The Post located Eva in rural Washington state. She is Donna Shaw, 60, a teacher who said Obama's ability to captivate audiences made her deeply uneasy because his "tone and cadence" reminded her of the child revivalist con-man preacher Marjoe Gortner.

"What I've come to realize is, the labor of generating an e-mail smear is divided and distributed amongst parties whose identities are secret even to each other,"[Allen] says. A first group of people published articles that created the basis for the attack. A second group recirculated the claims from those articles without ever having been asked to do so. "No one coordinates the roles," Allen said. Instead the participants swim toward their goal like a school of fish -- moving on their own, but also in unison.

"Citizens and political scientists must face the fact that the Internet has enabled a new form of political organization that is just as influential on local and national elections as unions and political action committees," she says. "This kind of misinformation campaign short-circuits judgment. It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one's accusers."

• Interview with Danielle Allen - recommended (RealAudio)
• If you want to see what this sort of stuff is like see the website Expose Obama, whose missives I've been watching for a while.
  

Irony of ironies, a Google search on 'Obama Muslim' currently brings up this news article (actually a letter) 'Obama Risks Muslim Backlash'.

No more 'foreign' correspondents

Richard Sambrook (Director of BBC Global News) gave a speech is Ishfahan last week which he blogged about.

Interesting quote:

I flew in to Isfahan in the early hours sitting next to a young woman dressed in strictly islamic fashion with a modest chador and headscarf. But the book she was reading was "Why men love bitches: from doormat to dreamgirl", a woman's guide to holding her own in a relationship.

From the speech he restated some basics:

Accurate, objective news and information, which all sides can trust, provides a foundation stone of rational debate in a world that is too easily dominated by intolerance and hatred. It is the gold standard of public value.

I would argue that the world needs informed debate, conducted in an atmosphere of mutual respect and tolerance; even if ultimately there’s little agreement. And basing that debate on reliable accurate news and analysis is the starting point.

The problem for me was when he stated:

That’s why the BBC invests more heavily in newsgathering than any other news organisation I know. Eye-witness reportage is important. Nothing beats saying ‘I was there’, I saw it’. Whether it’s the tragedy in Burma, or the personal experiences of everyday life in Teheran, we want to hear from ordinary citizens on-air and on-screen. This is a vital part of what we do as BBC journalists.

He's still talking about filtered reporting - why? Why aren't local sources trusted to know more about the local issues which define a situation.

This is the BBC's real problem. It invests heavily in overseas bureau's - Sambrook's boast - but, as I know from reading their Sydney correspondent, this doesn't mean they - or, as I have noted, their US correspondents. - understand anything about where they are and truly perform their role of translating local issues for a British, never mind a world, audience. (Though the current Sydney one's far better than the last one).

Recently, the example of the Kenyan crisis where BBC Online experimented with local reporters paid off, I think. In Zimbabwe - where the BBC has no presence - it would be more useful to link, with riders, to local sources like sokwanele.com for the benefit of audiences - which they're not doing much of and which the BBC Trust raised as a problem, though not for these user-focussed reasons.

I fail to see why we continue to send Brits to far-away places when it would be more useful to get others who are just as qualified to explain their realities to us.

I recall in Australia Philip Adams on the ABC, child of the BBC, bringing in Beatrix Campbell to do just that. Campbell ain't unbiased but she gave a far better perspective for me on the UK than any ABC correspondent.

• Speech text (Word)

West Midlands Police finally apologise ...

... but only after being taken to court.

Last year I covered how Channel Four's 'Dispatches' sent undercover reporters into British mosques and filmed preachers saying amongst other things:

“Do you practise homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.”

“If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs that should be murdered, that’s my freedom of speech isn’t it? They’ll say: “No”, I’m not tolerant. But they feel that it’s okay to say something about the Prophet.”

"Whoever changes his religion from Al Islam to anything else – kill him"

And how, after a ridiculous 'investigation', West Midlands Police (and the Crown Prosecution Service) instead of prosecuting these people for inciting violence made a complaint to Ofcom about the editing of the programme claiming it was 'stirring up racial hatred'. A complaint which itself was technically odd.

I noted that this was the same police who had a fraught relationship with their local gay and lesbian community.

And how police in general had had to be forced into taking action against murder music, dancehall reggae which is all about how to kill gays and lesbians.

I even found myself on the same side as the Editor of the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore, who said:

I do not know whether the Dispatches programme is right in every detail. But it clearly raises serious, important questions - about extremists in our midst, about the way apparently moderate organisations give them shelter, about the Saudi Arabian network that supports them.

What security agencies call "thematic analyses" show that, at present, the problems of Islamist extremism are particularly acute, especially in prisons and universities, in the West Midlands area.

Yet the West Midlands police and the Crown Prosecution Service decide that the target of their wrath should be not people who want to undermine this country, but some journalists who want to expose them.

Are they fit to protect us?

Late last year, Ofcom threw the complaint out and Channel Four then decided to launch a court action for defamation.

Andy Duncan, Channel 4 chief executive, said at the time:

West Midlands Police acted in a calculated fashion - they made no attempt to discuss their concerns about the film with us in advance of going public with their complaint to Ofcom knowing that an allegation of 'fakery' would generate significant media interest. Their action gave legitimacy to people preaching a message of hate to British citizens.

After being dragged to court, this apology and £100k payout is the result (half of the payout covers costs, the other goes to the Rory Peck Trust for freelance news gatherers and their families in times of need).

Following an independent investigation by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom, we now accept that we were wrong to make these allegations. We now accept 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. A review of the evidence (including untransmitted footage and scripts) by Ofcom demonstrated that the programme had accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context.

We accept, without reservation, the conclusions of Ofcom and apologise to the programme makers for the damage and distress caused by our original press release.

[CPS apology]

I think they should apologise to the gay and lesbian community - infact the whole community - as well, for 'wasting police time'.

The people who were responsible and should suffer some consequences are:

• CPS lawyer, Bethan David
• Assistant Chief Constable of the West Midlands Police, Anil Patani
• West Midlands Chief Constable, Paul Scott-Lee

Amongst others who weighed in against Channel Four were

• The secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Muhammad Abdul Bari
• Press spokesperson of the Muslim Council of Britain, Inayat Bunglawala
  

I would also be interested to know who, if any, of Birmingham's MPs supported Channel Four.

And whether any prosecutions for 'incitement to violence' against the hate preachers exposed in the documentary will ever follow.

Did the detox happen?

Well I managed a week without posting but only one day with no computer or TV. I did read a lot (Matthew Parris, Edmund White and history of Islam and C19th homosexuality) and potter around the garden between showers. Completely turning off would require being somewhere without access to anything, I think. That wouldn't bother me but if it's there ...

The excuses:

• I really wanted to check the reaction to the Philadelphia Primary, video + blogs, just listening to the BBC radio news would have me gnashing my teeth, wanting to see what's really going on.
• Same with Zimbabwe news, which is largely on blogs although the BBC has been much better than with Kenya plus Zimbabwean blogs are much thinner on the ground.
  
• I just don't watch much TV but do watch shows online, like the Daily Show and the fantabulous Bill Maher's RealTime and catch-up on BBC iPlayer (my rare forays into Channel Four's online offering just emphasise how thin it is but missing ads is great). You can't watch yesterday's Daily Show online, so you have to catch it before it expires (or wait three months). I need my satire break and UK shows don't cut it (even Bremner, Bird + Fortune most of the time). About the only 'appointment to view' TV for me for months was Glenn Close in Damages and the close-up to Tigers show.
• I needed to check email to see if a friend was OK.
• 'Detoxing' for me includes SimCity.
  

I wasn't reading much online, though, or checking feeds and as I learnt from my break last year - you don't miss that much that's mind-numbingly vitally important.

I did see my backyard birds finally start using the water that's there for them and I love this every year, the babies starting to appear. This year they haven't nested in the planters though, thank god. Seeing plants 'come back' (and what hasn't + needs replacing, I have a habit of putting several plants together and eventually one bully takes over) is lovely too + it's been warm enough to spend time outside. Boring, I know, but that was the idea of the detox I think?

Labour's ongoing gay refugee shame

In September 2003, Israfil Shiri, a gay Iranian asylum seeker, died after pouring petrol over himself and setting himself on fire in the offices of Refugee Action in Manchester, after his asylum claim was refused (in the lower and appeal court) and his deportation to Iran, where he would have been hanged, had been arranged. Iranian authorities had obtained documented evidence of his sexuality.

In April 2005 Hussein Nasseri shot himself two weeks after his asylum claim was turned down by the Home Office, refusing in this way to let himself be killed by Iranian executioners.

In 2005 then Home Secretary Charles Clarke was asked by Stonewall to intervene when an Appeal court judge used the following language in turning down a refugee's claim:

'He [the asylum seeker] says he fled when he realised a member of his coterie had been arrested by them, apparently leaving an incriminating video in their hands, showing unseemly activity on the part of this appellant and others.'

The 'independent' judge also went on about "buggery". Nothing happened. Clarke let it go on unchallenged. All of the previous appeals to previous Home Secretaries for previous cases of Iranians and other gay refugees have failed.

Last year a campaign was fought to save Iranian lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh. She was eventually released but her last appeal has now been turned down and she remains under real threat. Thankfully, she was also featured in this week's Independent coverage but that is no guarantees she will not face stoning on deportation because the policy lying behind all this has not changed.

The policy of the British government in the case of foreign gays and lesbians is that their sexuality is a choice, they can simply hide or move and nothing bad will happen to them. As noted before, this directly contradicts the Foreign Office. I'd add that this is in sharp contradiction to the face presented to British gays.

Jacqui Smith is just the latest in years of Labour Home Secretaries who have trumpeted their claims on gay rights to British gay voters whilst being responsible for the most vile homophobia within their own department - when it comes to foreigners. This is two-faced one law for 'us', another for 'them'. Their ongoing appeasement of this homophobia, to my mind, indicates to me where their true feelings lie: that they are no real 'friend of the gay community' anywhere. They cannot claim that they don't know about it - as they've done before - least of all this week when it's front page news.

This week, in responding to the Mehdi Kazemi case, the government has responded that each case is "carefully considered" and that everyone has the "right to appeal". But none of this matters one iota because of the policy which lies behind it which is — we don't accept that gay people are persecuted anywhere and therefore they have no right to refugee status.

This is all made even worse by the tiny numbers involved, giving the lie to statements by the like of the Tory East Midlands MEP who stopped just short in an email from a supporter of Mehdi Kazemi of saying 'we'll be swamped by gays fleeing Islamic countries'. Neither Holland or Sweden, who have different policies to the UK, have been 'swamped'.

A few questions:

• When is the British Press going to cover the shameful policy which lies behind these refusals of asylum and start asking real questions?
• When is the vile homophobia within the Home Office going to be challenged by the various anti-discrimination bodies and characters like Trevor Phillips?
• When are gay and lesbian Labour supporters and MPs going to stand up for gay refugees?

• medhikazemi.com for all news updates

Dictatorship 2.0: Bloggers as targets

Reporters Without Borders 2007 Worldwide rankings — done on their website as plain, flat web pages and hence very easy to find useful info — have highlighted a number of countries slipping down the index because "of serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information".

A decade ago, regime opponents in Vietnam or Tunisia were still printing leaflets in their basements and handing them out to fellow militants at clandestine meetings. Independent newspapers were no more than a few hastily-stapled photocopies distributed secretly.

These days, “subversive” or “counter-revolutionary” material goes on the Internet and political dissidents and journalists have become “cyber-dissidents” and “online journalists.” Most of them know how to create a blog, organise a chat group, make phone calls through a computer and use a proxy to get round censorship.

New technology allows them to receive and share news out of sight of the authorities.

The Web is also a blessing for human rights groups, which can now build a file on a political prisoner with a few mouse-clicks instead of over weeks and sometimes months.

The Web makes networking much easier, for political activists as well as teenagers. Unfortunately, this progress and use of new tools by activists is now being matched by the efforts of dictatorships to fight them. Dictators too have entered the world of Web 2.0.

According to the group at least 64 people are currently imprisoned worldwide because of postings on the web, eight of them in Vietnam.

They flagged up the case of Abdel Kareem Soliman, an Egyptian blogger jailed for four years after he used his web log to criticise the country's top Islamic institution, al-Azhar university, and President Hosni Mubarak, whom he called a dictator.

The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media.

More and more governments have realised that the Internet can play a key role in the fight for democracy and they are establishing new methods of censoring it. The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media.

In Malaysia (124th), Thailand (135th), Vietnam (162nd) and Egypt (146th), for example, bloggers were arrested and news websites were closed or made inaccessible.

China maintains its leadership in this form of repression, with a total of 50 cyber-dissidents in prison.

Talking about Burma:

The Burmese government’s Internet policies are even more repressive than those of its Chinese and Vietnamese neighbours. The military junta clearly filters opposition websites. It keeps a very close eye on Internet cafes, in which the computers automatically execute screen captures every five minutes, in order to monitor user activity. The authorities targeted Internet telephony and chat services in June, blocking Google’s Gtalk, for example. The aim was two-fold: to defend the profitable long-distance telecommunications market, which is controlled by state companies, as well as to stop cyber-dissidents from using a means of communication that is hard to monitor.

During the recent crisis the Net was, of course, a huge boon for journalists, but then the regime (like the Chinese) turned the tables, undercutting whether the Net makes any real difference:

Several Burmese journalists confirmed that the security services are circulating photos of demonstrators taken by citizen journalists or foreign reporters in police stations and among police informers. Scores of people have reportedly been arrested on the basis of these photos.

The same photos sent over the Web, before the regime shut it down.

The Internet was not designed to protect message confidentiality. It is fast and fairly reliable but also easy to spy on and censor. From the first mouse-click, users leave a trail and reveal information about themselves and what their tastes and habits are. This data is very valuable to commercial firms, who sort through it to target their advertising better.

The police also use it. The best way to spy on journalists a few years ago was still to send a plainclothes officer to stand outside their house. This can be done more cheaply and efficiently now, because machines can spy, report back and automatically prevent subversive conversations.

Cuba has installed spyware in cybercafé computers so that when users type “banned” words in an e-mail, such as the name of a known political dissident, they see a warning that they are writing things considered a “threat to state security” and the Web navigator then immediately shuts down.

China keeps a tight grip on what is written and downloaded by users and spends an enormous amount on Internet surveillance equipment and hires armies of informants and cyber-police.

It also has the political weight to force the companies in the sector - such as Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems - to do what it wants them to, and all have agreed to censor their search-engines to filter out websites overcritical of the authorities.

China has already signed an agreement with Skype to block key-words, so how can we be sure our conversations are not being listened to? How do we know if Skype will not also allow (or already has allowed) the Chinese police to spy on its customers?

It has become vital to examine new technology from a moral standpoint and understand the secondary effects of it. If firms and democratic countries continue to duck the issue and pass off ethical responsibility on others, we shall soon be in a world where all our communications are spied on.

• Google Board rejects shareholder challenge to its ethics

Support Channel Four over 'Undercover Mosque'

Channel Four's Dispatches earlier this year sent undercover reporters into British Mosques and filmed preachers saying amongst other things:

“Do you practise homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.”

“If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs that should be murdered, that’s my freedom of speech isn’t it? They’ll say: “No”, I’m not tolerant. But they feel that it’s okay to say something about the Prophet.”

“Homosexuality is an abomination against Allah, and all mankind, and I will never condone it. Even though this is the case, I do not believe in disobeying the law when it comes to the way people deal with homosexuals.”

'Undercover Mosque' went to:

• London Central Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre in Regent's Park
• Green Lane Mosque, Birmingham
• Ahl-e-Hadith mosque, in Derby
• UKIM's Sparkbrook Islamic Centre, Birmingham

A Deputy Head Teacher is quoted saying:

“They talk about integration. There is an overt as well as covert plan, a programme, they talk about, they talk about (sic), ‘you need to integrate’, if you don’t you’re a freak, you’re strange, there’s something wrong with you! Like, like (sic) if you have something against homosexuality they’ve got a name to call you now. You’re a “homophobic” man! There’s something wrong with you! Not with this gay, sorry, a homosexual (laughter) . Which part of this society are we supposed to adopt as our life? Which one?”

According to Stonewall's Recent Report on the situation of ruined life chances for young gay people in schools:

Seventy five per cent of young gay people attending faith schools have experienced homophobic bullying. Half of teachers fail to respond to homophobic language when they hear it. Thirty per cent of lesbian and gay pupils say that adults - teachers or support staff - are responsible for homophobic incidents in their school. Less than a quarter of schools have told pupils that homophobic bullying is wrong.]

All those quoted claimed their words were used 'out of context' or they were merely quoting book extracts and that's not what they really thought.

The Muslim Council of Britain leaped to their defense — these would be the same MCB who actively supported Clause28, and opposed every law reform such as adoption, partnerships and equality for lesbians and gays under the law.

Peter Tachell outlines how the MCB has consistently rejected talks with gay organisations and rebuffed proposals to tackle homophobia within Muslim communities.

"Some of the MCB's tirades against lesbians and gays echo the homophobic hate language of the BNP."

“One reason the MCB refuses to participate in Holocaust Memorial Day is because it objects to the ceremony including a commemoration of what it dismisses as ‘the so-called gay genocide.' The MCB regards the murder of gay people in Nazi death camps as unworthy of remembrance."

The footage starts here. I personally found it very hard to watch..

[Part two-six>] [Other video] [Transcript (haven't checked every word)]

The West Midlands Police have just announced their reaction to the program:

The police investigation initially looked at whether there had been any criminal offences committed by those featured in the programme and following careful consideration by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), West Midlands Police have been advised that there is insufficient evidence to bring charges against those individuals featured within the programme.

West Midlands Police acknowledge the concerns that some parts of the programme may have been considered offensive, however when analysed in their full context there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges against any individual.

ACC Anil Patani for West Midlands Police said: "As a result of our initial findings, the investigation was then extended to include issues relating to the editing and portrayal of the documentary.

"The priority for West Midlands Police has been to investigate the documentary and it's making with as much rigour as the extremism the programme sought to portray."

The police investigation concentrated on three speakers and their comments in the programme. CPS reviewing lawyer Bethan David considered 56 hours of media footage of which only a small part was used in the programme. She said: "The splicing together of extracts from longer speeches appears to have completely distorted what the speakers were saying.

"The CPS has demonstrated that it will not hesitate to prosecute those responsible for criminal incitement. But in this case we have been dealing with a heavily edited television programme, apparently taking out of context aspects of speeches which in their totality could never provide a realistic prospect of any convictions."

The CPS was also asked by the police to consider whether a prosecution under the Public Order Act 1986 should be brought against Channel 4 for broadcasting a programme including material likely to stir up racial hatred. Miss David advised West Midlands Police that on the evidence available, there was insufficient evidence that racial hatred had been stirred up as a direct consequence of the programme. It would also be necessary to identify a key individual responsible for doing this together with an intent to stir up racial hatred, which was not possible.

West Midlands Police have taken account of this advice and explored options available to them and has now referred the matter to the broadcasting regulators Ofcom as a formal complaint.

West Midlands Police has also informed Channel 4 of this course of action.

Video: BBC news report
Video: Channel Four News report

In other words, because the programme was edited and because we don't think there's a law we can use this makes calling for lesbians and gays to be killed not the point. Instead 'community cohesion' is paramount.

These would be the same police and government which has tolerated murder music, dancehall reggae which is all about how to kill gays and lesbians. It isn't the government or the police which is shutting that down, it's grassroots activism.

I don't believe for one second that all Muslims want me dead — I know Muslim people as mates for one thing — but clearly some do and I can't see why they shouldn't be dealt with the same as the reverse situation.

It's hard to see this as doing anything other than reinforcing the second-class status of lesbians and gays, actually undermining 'cohesion' because it's 'one law for them ... ' and actually encouraging hate speech because clearly it's tolerated.

I find myself agreeing with Charles Moore, Editor of The Telegraph, of all people. He takes apart the 'context' argument to reveal something worse underneath:

I do not know whether the Dispatches programme is right in every detail. But it clearly raises serious, important questions - about extremists in our midst, about the way apparently moderate organisations give them shelter, about the Saudi Arabian network that supports them.

What security agencies call "thematic analyses" show that, at present, the problems of Islamist extremism are particularly acute, especially in prisons and universities, in the West Midlands area.

Yet the West Midlands police and the Crown Prosecution Service decide that the target of their wrath should be not people who want to undermine this country, but some journalists who want to expose them.

Are they fit to protect us?

• Channel Four contact form
• Must be some way to contact Ofcom through this lot

Postscript: Just redited this a few days later as it had fair few typos. Truth is, I usually recheck for such things but this subject was one I just didn't want to think about again, having felt quesy but determined to post about. Why? a/ these people make me feel unsafe, b/ it's a reminder to an old queen like me that - no - the police aren't really to be trusted (as was clearly understood before but now they make claims). It's also a reminder to me just how tolerated hate speech really is - and hence how far we've really got to go. Which is depressing.

• Postscript, August 19.