A series of videos on the BBC website, under the BBC’s ample #MeToo umbrella, includes a short film about Tariq Ramadan who is currently in custody in France, facing charges of rape.
We’ve alluded to professor Ramadan previously - here on this site and, back in the day, on Biased-BBC, but the most exhaustive critique of Ramadan, Islamic philosopher and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, is in Paul Berman’s ‘The Flight of the Intellectuals’
From Anthony Julius’s review:
“In short, Berman finds the widespread admiration of Ramadan to be misplaced. Berman regards Ramadan as a sinister figure with a sinister agenda, and at the same time deplores the intimidation and violence directed at that “subset of the European intelligentsia — its Muslim free-thinking and liberal wing especially” — who “survive only because of bodyguards.”
In making this film, which someone has bizarrely titled 'The rock star scholar and rape claims” the BBC has commissioned - or collaborated with - another object of its own misplaced admiration, none other than a lady you’ll be familiar with if you’ve ever watched The Big Questions; the sanctimonious Muslim intellectual Myriam Francois, formerly known as Myriam François-Cerrah.
Having apparently ditched the “Cerrah” as well as the hijab, I wonder if Myriam Francois is another beneficiary of the BBC’s vigorous pursuit of diversity for the sake of it, in presenters, guests and talking heads. (Although the proliferation of brash, 'Identity-Muslim' female recruits such as Mehreen Baig and Nelufar Hedayat etc seems hardly diverse if you see what I mean)
Obviously, I have no idea who dreamt up the idea for this film and I’m not even accusing it of being especially one-sided, for although it contains a considerable amount of content favourable to Ramadan - (more so, for example, than anything I’ve seen in the BBC’s coverage of Harvey Weinstein) it clearly includes criticism of Ramadan, his serial sexual infidelity and patent hypocrisy as a devout Muslim and “Oxford professor.”
Nevertheless, the BBC’s coverage of this sordid business strikes a jarring note. This is an ongoing case and, I daresay, none of Myriam Francois’s business. The report seems prurient, exploitative and inappropriate. Could it have any effect on the trial? I don’t know. It just seems all wrong, somehow.
I noticed this as well. I also noted that it contains a factual howler. The reporter claims (06:15) that sexual intercourse outside marriage is definitely not allowed under Islam. Not true. Sharia law has always held that a man may have relations with with his female slaves if he wishes, even though not married to them.
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