The Beebs ran an interview with him on 1st October. Link here.
Letter to the Beebs about it:
[above: Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5; see below]
It was just too easy for Owen Bennet-Jones to trip up his semi-namesake, the ill-read would-be Koran burner, the egregious “Pastor” Terry Jones (“The Interview: Pastor Terry Jones”, Fri, 1 Oct 10). Like shooting ducks in a barrel, what?
But still: Bennet-Jones should do his own research rather more carefully. He says (he guesses) there are something like “200” radical Islamists in the UK .
In a Speech By The Director General Of The Security Service, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, At Queen Mary's College, London, 9 November 2006, she says:
“.... my officers and the police are working to contend with Some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals (and there will be many we don't know) who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas..... This view is shared, in some degree, by a far wider constituency. If the opinion polls conducted in the UK since July 2005 are only broadly accurate, over 100,000 of our citizens consider that the July 2005 attacks in London were justified.” [1]Later research by ICM Research, 22-28 May 2008, reveals that 53% of British Muslims believe Islamic values are “not compatible with British values”.[2]
In sum:
- A majority of Britain’s 2.5 million Muslims believe that cherished values of the UK — fair play and democracy — are not compatible with Islam,
- Over 100,000 UK Muslims think the murders of innocents on 7/7 were “justified” and
- Over 1,600 UK Muslims are prepared to commit similar acts of mass homicide.
These are not the figures one would expect if the “minority-of-extremists-hijacking-a-religion-of-peace” argument is correct.
Surely these startling figures should be cause for national soul-searching, whatever the befuddled inanities voiced by the dopey “Pastor” Jones.
Yours, etc,
********
References:[1] https://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/the-international-terrorist-threat-to-the-uk-1.html
[2] http://www.channel4.com/news/media/pdfs/Muslim-Poll-May08.pdf
