Lessons In Hate and Violence

[chanel]

Darul Uloom Islamic High School in Birmingham

Welcome to one of Britain's most influential Islamic faith schools, one of at least 2,000 such schools in Britain, some full-time, others part-time. They represent a growing, parallel education system.

The school is an oversubscribed independent secondary school. Darul Ulooms are world-renowned Islamic institutions and their aim is to produce the next generation of Muslim leaders. In fact, these schools have been described as the 'Etons of Islam'.

This school is required by its inspectors to teach tolerance and respect for other faiths. But Dispatches' Lessons in Hate and Violence filmed secretly inside it – and instead discovered that Muslim children are being taught religious apartheid and social segregation.

'...tortured with a forked iron rod'

We recorded a number of speakers giving deeply disturbing talks about Jews, Christians and atheists. We found children as young as 11 learning that Hindus have 'no intellect'. We came across pupils being told that the 'disbelievers' are 'the worst creatures' and that Muslims who adopt supposedly non-Muslim ways, such as shaving, dancing, listening to music, and – in the case of women – removing their headscarves, would be tortured with a forked iron rod in the after-life.

The Markazi Jamia Mosque

During the same period our reporter also attended the Markazi Jamia Mosque, in Keighley, West Yorkshire after hearing of serious allegations that children were being hit at its madrassa.

Madrassas in the UK are part-time after-school or weekend classes, often held in mosques, where children are taught to read the Koran. In Keighley, it is not what they are being taught that is the problem, but how.

Again, Osman went into the mosque and left the camera in the room where classes took place.

Undercover filming

The film shows children as young as six sitting on the floor of a large room in the mosque, one of the biggest in the country. The boys are hunched over wood benches, rocking backwards and forwards as they rote-learn the Koran in Arabic. A man with a long white beard dressed in a traditional shalwar kameez – tunic and trousers – sits at the head of the class.

Periodically he gets up and walks behind the boys. As he passes, the children appear to cower and watch him nervously. It soon becomes clear why.

He unexpectedly raises his hand and slaps a young boy hard on the head. Moments later he strikes another. And then he kicks a third child. In just two days of filming in December 2010, the camera recorded the teacher hitting children as young as six or seven at least ten times, in less than three hours of lessons.

Dispatches - Features - Lessons in Hate and Violence: Feature - Channel 4

One of the schools has been closed pending an investigation. But guess who members of the British press are going after?

In an article blandly headlined “Mosque school arrest following Channel 4 documentary,” it includes the above information. How can it not? But it also gives us to this extraordinary comment by Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming:

“If Channel 4 thinks this is a school where racism and intolerance is accepted in any way, they have got their facts seriously wrong. [The school] have already had hate mail, and now they are having to close for the safety of their pupils. This kind of documentary is ideal fodder for the [far-right] English Defence League. Channel 4 is putting the safety of children at risk by criticising a school which is doing its job properly.”

The PJ Tatler » Backlash!