You are in:
- Archives » 2008 » May 2008
Police Apologise For "Fake" Documentary Claim
Another little vignette from Topsy-Turvy Britain. A couple of years ago a Channel Four documentary crew smuggled cameras into a number of English mosques and recorded footage of extremist preachers at work. One called for homosexuals to be executed; another praised the Taleban as "heroes of Islam" for killing British soldiers.
The footage was broadcast under the title Undercover Mosque as part of the Dispatches series.
The documentary caught the attention of the Crown Prosecution Service and the West Midlands Police. Frenzied clerics preaching fundamentalist hatred in the heart of Britain? Surely these are the sort of people anti-hate speech laws ought to be protecting us against. Perhaps the culprits could be deported, as their counterparts are in France?
Unfortunately not. The CPS and Police investigated the film makers, accusing them of selective editing, distortion and "undermining community relations."
The police took what newspapers describe as the "highly unusual step" of referring the programme-makers to OFCOM, the media watchdog; OFCOM rejected their complaint.
The production team and Channel Four then brought legal action against the police and CPS. They won the case, and today both the West Midlands Police and CPS will make the following public apology in the High Court:
"On 8 August 2007 we published, jointly with the Crown Prosecution Service, a press release relating to the Channel Four Dispatches programme “Undercover Mosque”. This press release alleged that footage of the speakers shown had been so “heavily edited” and taken out of context that it had “completely distorted” their meaning. Reference was made to the CPS having been asked to consider (although against advice) instituting proceedings against those involved in making the programme for inciting racial hatred.
"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."
We wonder if those "community leaders" who praised the police for fighting Channel Four's "Propaganda Campaign against the Muslim community" will also apologise - or, indeed, if the police will do their real job and arrest those preachers who stirred up this hatred in the first place?
