Press Release
BBC Panorama: Another step towards forcing Muslim children to adopt secular liberal values

London, UK, November 22nd 2010 - The media sensationalism generated by tonight's BBC Panorama [British Schools, Islamic Rules] is the latest attempt to force Muslims to adopt liberal values.

Taji Mustafa, media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain said "the tactics are now well understood by most Muslims. You demonize aspects of Islamic beliefs and values linking them to selective quotations, distortions or misrepresentations about Islam in the hope  that Muslims will denounce every aspect of Islam that  contradicts secular liberal values."

"The program talked of ‘diagrams about the punishment for thieves', verses from the Qur'an, and the unsurprising Islamic view that homosexuality as a sin against the law of the Creator, and presented these as evidence that such Islamic views are unacceptable and Muslims must reject them."
 
"Muslims are increasingly used to seeing the myth of liberal tolerance being replaced with the truth of liberal supremacy, having seen similar attacks by some politicians and sections of the media pressurizing  Muslims to embrace secular values."

"We doubt if Mr Gove, the Education Secretary, would show consistency and ban H.E. Marshall's ‘Our Island Story' - a favorite of conservative educationalists - from school because it talks about ‘Turks' and ‘Saracens' in such jingoistic and derogatory terms."

 "Muslims have been expected by the British establishment to concede they have ‘false grievances' about the West's foreign policy, that occupation of Muslim lands must go undefended, that attacks on the Shariah are legitimate, and that they should laugh off attacks on the Blessed Prophet Muhammad (phuh). Now aggressive liberal secularists demand that Muslims endorse same sex relationships as a natural lifestyle choice and distance themselves from Shariah punishments, the effect of which is to deter the levels of criminality all too common in Western cities."

"Michael Gove and Panorama should perhaps concentrate more on the real problems in British education:  the rising levels of attacks on teachers;  the  bullying of children due to their faith; and the fact that society has rising levels of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease and antisocial behavior."

"It is precisely for these reasons that Muslims seek to encourage their children to chose Islamic values, so that they can be wholesome, decent, productive people, who have respect for others - especially for women and the elderly - as well as for themselves, no matter where they are in the world."

"Despite the huge pressure on Muslims in the west to remain silent in the face of this coercive assimilation campaigns, we will continue to expose such liberal totalitarianism and urge Muslims to engage in the wider debate about the damaging effect of some liberal values on society at large."

Hizb ut Tahrir Britain