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Name
Akram Eljohari
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Profession
Question
First of all, can you tell us about the background of this campaign against pornography and violence and the reasons behind it?
Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
The campaign against pornography, violence and bad language has been for many years in Britain by some British non-Muslims, many of them are good Christians. Their organization is called Media Watch UK, and its branch in London is called Media March. This media march has been doing 5 marches in London, last of which was occured on May 31st, 2003. Muslims, Christians and others joined together in this march, which ended up in a rally in Trafalgar square. Speeches were given by leading personalities in Britain, mostly Christians, and I spoke on behalf of the Muslim Council of Britain.
This non-Muslim campaign against pornography and bad language goes back to the many harms, sufferings,problems, diseases, and crimes resulting from this immoral media. We all distributed petitions to sign and we have about 100,000 petitions, and we are planning to get 250, 000 to be signed, in order to present the Prime Minister Tony Blair asking for more control and censorship on the immoral and violent program especially in T.V., magazines, satellites, video, internet, etc.
Another good work for media march and media watch UK we do is to guide people to write letters of complaints to the official body in Britain when there is offensive program shown or violent acts seen.
The goodness about writing letters of complaint to the broadcasting authority is that the government would listen and then stop the offensive or immoral program when only just few hundred people complain out of 60 million people in Britain.
More information can be found at:
www.mediawatchuk.org
www.mediamarch.org.uk
Name
Osama Affan
- United Kingdom
Profession
Question
What type of action did the campaign take to protest against immorality and violent acts?
Answer
We take the following actions:
1. Writing frequent letters of complaint to the official authority in Britain when any offensive program or view is seen. By the way, the same way is used when anything insulting Islam or Muslims is shown. This complaint could be done by e-mail, letter, or phone.
2. Obviously the annual media march to to make use of the media.
3. Collecting more signatures for petitions.
Sometimes we write to newspaper or magazines for anything immoral or offensive.
Name
Khadija
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Profession
Question
How was the reaction of people? Who participated in media march?
Answer
Unfortunately, not many people came forward although we believe there is silent majority who support us fully in our campaign. Also, not so many Muslims joined in the march for different reasons, but they strongly supported the campaign. Some Muslims shy away to work with Christians; some are worried about mixing with many of the women who are not obviously decent in their clothing. Thirdly Muslims were quite busy with a lot of other issues concerning them.
However, I am personally very frustrated for not seeing the Muslims coming forward and joining in big numbers, because this campaign is very important as immorality is affecting our young Muslim youth and children so badly.
Among people who joined the march were a lot of parents, doctors, religious Christians, teachers, policemen, and Christian Radio Broadcaster.
Name
Ashyol
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Profession
Question
In your opinion, what was the reason behind the poor presentation of Muslims in this wonderful campaign?
Answer
Allah knows best!
However, as I said, some Muslims, I believe, are narrow-minded and do not like to join with non-Muslims even if the cause is Islamic. Some other people have problem with the language. Others worry about mixing with the opposite sex. Some of them might think the march would mean fighting, shouting, attacking, and police intervention, so they feel safer at home.
Another thing, Muslims were distracted as there were so many marches in London against Iraq war, for Palestine, and before for Afghanistan, Kashmir, etc.
Name
Fou'ad
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Profession
Question
As we hear there are a lot of shocking statistics about the crime rates in the West. Offenses related to sex, pornography, and violence are always high. Can you update us regarding some latest statistics about adultery, rape, violence, etc.?
Answer
For pornography, there are over 30 % of sites on the internet. It is about 13 billion dollars industry per year. Playboy magazine headquarter receives about 5 million hits in a week.
As for violence, the average American 13-year old child has witnessed 8, 000 murders and more than 10,000 acts of violence on TV. In a typical week on a British TV, 400 killing scenes, 119 wounding, 27 attacks on women.
If we go to Internet pornography, 53 % of teens have been exposed to offensive websites, 91 % of teens have been exposed accidentally to the porno websites. The problem is we have 73 % of children who have access to the Internet. This is mainly in America.
Also, 86 % of rapists regularly use pornography. And there are 800 million internet pages on pornography.
Many studies in America show that 50 % of crimes are related to TV violence. They said that without TV, we will have less 10, 000 murders, less 70, 000 rapes, less millions motor vehicles theft, less 2 and half million burglary.
Name
Rebecca
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Profession
Question
How about the Muslim presentation in the campaign? What message you carried in your speech as a spokesman of Muslims?
Answer
I did mention before the reasons behind the poor Muslim presentation in the march.
As for the message I gave, I started with the Name of Allah and thanking the media march for this brave campaign which is supported by all Muslims in Britain. I said that in our religion all these immoral views and scenes are prohibited. I also said that their campaign is our campaign and we are happy to work together.
I also said it is not only a religious or a moral issue, it is more than that. It is health issue, a social issue, and it is even a criminal issue and human one. We have a lot of studies supporting our campaign: medical, criminal, social, etc.
Also, I mentioned that we have to be careful about the sexualisation of our children. We have to be careful about young daughters dressing and behaving in a sexually attractive way. Already we have in Britain 200, 000 pedophilic (men having sex with little children).
I addressed the common daily soup or play that are full of adultery, nakedness, sexual acts, sexual perversion, rape, abortion, lesbianism, and domestic violence. We need to watch our children and warn them against that.
In conclusion, I addressed the hundreds of people who came for the rally saying "do not feel worried or unhappy as you look small in number, but there is silent majority who are with us, and more important, our all God Almighty will fully support our campaign and this divine truth and God will no doubt give us victory at the end."
Name
Fahmi Farhat
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Profession
Question
Dr. Abdelmajid, there are a lot to say about pornography in the West? I personally thought that the entire West is pro pornography. I never thought of any protest to happen from people who dress naked, have extra-marital relations, etc. Do you think the number of conservative families among non-Muslims in London is growing? What do you think would be the reason behind that?
Answer
First, I like to say there are many good campaigns by the non-Muslims in the West, many of them are good Christians. They have organizations against adultery and for chastity, for marriage and motherhood as well as full time mother, for parental responsibility, against homosexuality, against abortion, against euthanasia and human cloning. Unfortunately, Muslims are not involved in these organisation; they feel having some isolation. But these people love to see the Muslims joining them in their campaign, not even on a religious ground, but on human and health ground and for the sake of our children.
Now, permissiveness is rising fast among girls, women, men, boys, even married people. But at the same time, we are seeing some light and good campaign coming from many non-Muslims in the West, especially in the United States that shows some kind of move to the conservative traditional families. They look till now minority and they are dying for Muslims to join with them.
In brief, not all the West or non-Muslims are bad, but there are many good people in Britain and in the West with good campaign fully supported by Islam. I am personally trying to be the bridge between Muslims and these good people in the West, but I am still facing the problem of poor response from many Muslims around me in Britain.
Name
Faisal
- Canada
Profession
Project Coordinator
Question
Canada is in the verge of legalizing gay's and lesbian's marriages, majority of the Muslims are confused as how to explain this to their kids when they will start to ask questions about it. They already showed them getting married and kissing in front of the camera on television. Any comments on this will be appreciated.
Answer
Unfortunately, homosexuality is spreading like fire and is very strong in every Western country. Homosexual organisations are very strong in the United Nations conferences , in all media TV and radio, in the army, and now in Britain in the police, among doctor and priests. This is a very serious problem. We are shocked to discover some Mulims organization campaigning for homosexuality, one of them is called al-Fatiha. Unfortunately, our young Muslim children are bombarded and brainwashed daily to accept homosexuality as halal (allowed) and normal. Also, the same reason which makes one homosexual is affecting some of our Muslims because they are just Muslims by name and they are not well-educated in Islam and they are not practicing it. 3 weeks ago I was in Malaysia, attending the second International Conference for Muslim Leaders on HIV & AIDs disease. I was shocked, along with many Muslims there, to see that many Muslims NGO (non-governmental organisations) are infiltrated by homosexual and lesbian "Muslims". The conference was moving to approve and legalize homosexuality. We walked out of the conference, we made protest and press conference especially when one "Muslim" speaker started to undermine and attack some hadiths and verses related to women, sex, etc.
Homosexuality is prohibited in all religions. It is the main cause for HIV and AIDs, especially in the beginning. The punishment in Islam for homosexuality is severe, sometimes it is capital punishment. Some people might have homosexual orientations or design but they are not practicing. This is a minor crime, but they do need psycho-sexual counseling, and if they are Muslims they need Islamic counseling. In Britain you are allowed to have sex in private, women together and men together, as long as you are over the age of 18.
I am personally very concerned about this issue, because we are not talking about it at least among our own Muslim community and we are not trying to prevent the pathology or the causes which make someone homosexual. There is another sexual crisis in Arab and Muslim world, the adult men having sex with small children.
This issue is very delicate now and we need to address it in a plan of action to 1)protect our own Muslim community; 2)to work with all these organization in the west against homosexuality. The fact is, as my English friend told me, "you Muslims have got the strongest and clearest prohibition of homosexuality, and if you Muslims speak up here in Britain, many of us will be behind you." I say this because the church and Christianity is dying and confusing in the West. What more you want to see than the gay and lesbian Christian association among the priests in the Church.
Name
Editor
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Profession
Answer
We would like to apologize for our viewers for not being able to answer all the questions within the time allotted to this session. We request our viewers to join us in the upcoming sessions.
