BBC was right to interview militant Islamist

Each time I enter a Church, the first thing I do is kneel and say a prayer of thanks for my freedom to be there.

Whether or not you hold a religious belief, I hope you agree that to be able to attend places of worship when we want to in this country (whether to worship or simply admire the art and architecture) is a state of affairs we should never take for granted. Sadly, there are those who would strip us of this freedom.

John Humphries’ interview with Islamic militant Abu Izzadeen on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning made grim listening. You will recall he was the militant Muslim who heckled John Reid earlier this week. Putting aside the one moment I laughed aloud – when John Humphries was for a change the one forced to say ‘please let me get a word in edgeways’ - I was quaking with fear. Every one of Abu Izzadeen’s words was filled with hate.

He made it quite clear he would like to see Sharia law imposed in the UK. Given his extreme views, what could that mean for someone like me?

Under Abu Izzadeen’s law, I suspect I would be forced to do more than just clothe myself head to foot in sweltering black cloth, or risk being beaten if I refused. As a woman, there is a possibility I would be expected to give up my job, my livelihood and therefore the only means I have of supporting myself and my daughter. I might be confined to my home, having no male relatives to accompany me outside it. The (male) religious police, however, may have few qualms about entering my home to destroy my precious religious library, my Bibles and prayer books, my treasured Christian icons and my inspiring Buddha statue. I may well not be allowed to drive my car (in Saudi Arabia there is a belief that a woman's female hormones make her unstable and therefore a danger on the road). Might I be forced to attend a mosque? Forced to watch brutal executions in my town square or on my local football pitch? Perhaps the news on our state-sponsored TV screens would be of the deliberate and ‘glorious’ destruction of Stonehenge.

This is what Sharia law, very rigidly interpreted, could mean. It is what happened in Afghanistan under the Taleban.

Many people emailed the Today programme to say they were appalled the BBC had given time to this man. While I found the interview distressing listening, I believe they were absolutely right to broadcast his rage and hatred. We need to hear these voices. We need to know what is going on out there and know there are people like him who would trash our freedoms. Two particular groups of people in particular need to start thinking hard:

1. Women, increasingly young women, who fail to recognise how hard women have fought for the equality we enjoy in this country and believe feminism is no longer necessary. It is.

2, Muslims who do not agree with Azadeen. I do feel they should state their disagreement more clearly, rather than just dismissing comments like Abu Izzadeen's as 'unrepresentative.’

I so badly want to live in peace and harmony with my Muslim neighbours. I so badly want everyone to accept Islam and all faiths as offering immense wisdom, truth and joy, to recognise their great potential for good. But no one should stay silent about the abuses that take place in the name of religion.

There will be those who feel we should just take no notice of these extremists, that they are in the minority and they will eventually go away and that we give them more publicity by challenging them. I don't agree. It seems sometimes to me as if apathy has gripped our nation and we can’t afford to let it. As we all know, when good people do nothing, evil triumphs. It did in Afghanistan, in Zimbabwe, in the Sudan – in many places – and, if we let it, it will rear its ugly head again.

Listen to the Today programme interview here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_abu_20060922.ram