mediawatchwatch.org.uk

MWW wouldn’t normally comment on the story that Channel 4’s alternative Christmas message is being delivered by a woman in a veil, but the Daily Express thought it was a good idea to get that crazee Christian from Camarthen, Stephen Green, to say something silly about it.

He duly obliged, saying the idea would “get people’s backs up” and,

The niqab is a veil of separation between Muslims and the indigenous Christian community. This will expose multi-culturalism for what it is – a bias against the Christian population.

Note the lovely racist undertone of that adjective “indigenous”, and the hilarious persecution complex. We’ve missed you Stephen. You’ve been very quiet of late – that phone call from the Express must have been like spring water to a thirsty soul.

By the way, here’s an old Private Eye cartoon on the subject of the veil:

UPDATE: (16/12/06) She bowed out of the programme. Channel 4 is currently trying to find another niqab to deliver the xmas message.

The Muslim Association of Britain has called for a boycott of the bizarre Christian video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

The game is set in New York after all the good Christians have been vacuumed up into heaven by God in the “rapture”. It is based on the 64-million-selling novels by semi-literate fundamentalists Tim La Haye and Jerry Jenkins.

The “goodies” are the paramilitary Christian Tribulation Force. They are pitted against the Global Community Peacekeepers, an anti-christ army made up of college-trained secularists, devils, and foul-mouthed guitar-weilding rock stars who can drain your spirit with a power chord. The aim is to convert as many baddies as possible by raising their “spirit level”. (No, we are not making this up).

A spokesman for the MAB told The Times:

This game is irresponsible and highly racist. It demonises every other religion which isn’t Christianity. People must boycott this violent game.

Games like this poison the minds of young people.

(The MAB are in favour of religiously-segregated schools).

Terry Sanderson, the new president of the NSS, has also condemned it, but stopped short of calling for a ban:

I think most Muslims and most Christians would recognise that this is crude and despicable hate-mongering and give it a wide berth.

Indeed, the game itself is buggy, boring, and badly designed according to knowledgeable gamers. Brett Todd of Gamespot concludes a scathing review:

there’s nothing remarkable about it–other than the fact that it is a remarkably bad game

The actor Madhav Sharma, speaking at the conference against censorship held by Equity, has claimed that the arts establishment disgraced itself when it failed to support Behzti. The play was forced to close by violent Sikh protestors in December 2004.

Sharma, who was to perform in the play, said:

Behzti was a disgrace to the arts establishment, who didn’t support the fact that the performance should have continued. I understand why Birmingham Rep pulled it but I think it was cowardly of them to do so. I think it was appalling that the police said they couldn’t police 200 militant Sikhs.

The truth is when it happened Equity didn’t support us, we didn’t have the arts council support us. Really there was no support at all. Therefore bullying was allowed to succeed over law and order.

Speakers called for an emergency group to be founded which would offer proper support in the event of other situations like Behzti or Jerry Springer: The Opera arising.

(From The Stage)

In a move that’s bound to irk the recently-formed Christian Muslim Forum, the UK’s foremost Christian book chain SPCK (Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge) has decided to stop selling the Koran in its stores.

The majority stake of SPCK was recently sold to the Eastern Orthodox St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, headed by Texan businessman Mark Brewer. He says:

Stocking books which are inimical to Christianity, which without question the Koran is, could well create the wrong impression among some that we endorse the belief systems of other religions as equal or viable alternatives.

Ibrahim Mogra, who chairs the inter-faith committee of the Muslim Council of Britain (an organisation which the Times still thinks should be consulted on such matters, for some reason), is dismayed:

Islam is currently under the spotlight. It is misunderstood and has been abused by some who have carried out violence in its name. Now is the time for people to have access to the Koran and the writings of Islam. This will help people understand the faith and what makes Muslims tick.

Isn’t encouraging people to read the Koran a bit of a risky strategy for someone who wants to promote Islam?

As a piece of scheduling it is pretty much par for the course for Channel 4, yet somehow next year’s The Virgin School still manages to beggar the belief of our favourite smut campaigner, John Beyer of Mediawatch-UK.

It follows the fortunes of a man in his late twenties, still a virgin, as he enrols in a three-month sex course in Amsterdam where he eventually pops his cherry with a sex therapist.

According to a Channel 4 spokesman it is “a sensitive documentary that follows one young man’s effort to overcome a major obstacle in his life.” But it’s about sex, so Beyer, who is quite possibly not a virgin himself, is outraged:

It beggars belief. It’s yet another example of them trying to attract viewers with a programme about sex. It is really time that Channel 4 grew up,

said the wise and mature Christian from Ashford who, it must be said, does rather seem so caught up in his own importance that he really can’t see… Oh, wait…

They are so caught up in their own importance that they really can’t see beyond their own quest for sensationalism and controversy.

Not for the first time.

(From The Daily Mail)