A CONSPIRACY TO SILENCE

A week or so ago the BBC current affairs programme Panorama presented a programme about the so called Islamic Republic of Iran, exposing not only the brutal repression and widespread use of torture but also the use of Press TV the English language propaganda arm of the Iranian government in colluding with the torturers. It was a powerful film and an indictment of the apologists of this theocratic state which saddles its people with a primitive medieval theology, locking up and engaging in the most extreme violence, including rape, against the very best of its young people.


In reaction to this film the anti-Semitic Muslim Public affairs Committee, MPAC, is launching a campaign of protest against the BBC, encouraging a phone and e-mail protest to the complaints programme Points Of View, (the Muslim Association Of Britain, MAB, are conducting a similar campaign respecting the programme My Brother the Islamacist). This represents a growing and rather sinister campaign to rule criticism of Islam off limits, though why an exposé of torture and Rape in Iran should be deemed anti Islamic begs some rather serious questions.

Now I have signed electronic petitions and my own inbox is constantly bombarded by requests for my name to be added to other lists, I am increasingly reluctant to do so. This confected democracy makes me uneasy. We live in an age when it is increasingly easy to assemble numbers, to create outrage and offence, bombard the BBC with enough protest and you can create a wholly artificial impression of widespread public outrage, a device to silence criticism. As I say I find this development sinister and well worth keeping an eye upon.

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