Last paragraph '1.5million' muslims in the world is exactly what the BBC article said. Shows again how hastily written and badly constructed this article is. Obviously still learning how to do proper (i.e. harder to detect) black propaganda.

For these who genuinely don't know, it is probable that Sayyed Mohammed Musawi actually said there are 1.5 billion muslims in the world, not 1.5 million, as reported in the article. Considering that he's the World Islamic League secetary-general, I don't think he'd get his numbers wrong.

Seems they changed the headline. Hahaha!

There is an easy answer to dealing with this kind of black propaganda - refuse to pay the license fee.

send your complaint,
 newsonline.complaints@bbc.co.uk.

Not living in the UK I rely on the BBC quite a bit for
news and comment, I have to say the BBC is light years in front of CNN of VOA, SKY and the other scummier channels.
The discussions on the world service, are very good and often include wicked comments from people working for NGO's about anti corporate anti globalisation which are 648 on the medium wave band I listen to it in the car
in nothern europe.
But when the heat is on, as it is at the moment, and the spin doctors start to make their presence felt the beeb becomes just another political instrument, the whole corporation is rife with nepotist and everyone is related so they all toe the line. But I'm sure that if we were to complain and kick up some serious shit, get a bit of debate going ,start a campaign a lot of the people at the BBC would support it. They probably feel a bit isolated and would no doubt get the push if they started anything on their own.. This article was probably forced on them by Jo Moore, Mike Moores sister ?

anon

The BBC article has now been completely re-written. The new version is given below.

Much of the material on the pro-Taliban march has now mysteriously disappeared from the text, indicating possibly a Govt D-notice suppressing reportage of mass Muslim pro-Taliban marches in the UK - i.e. to quote individual nutters, especially if you can smear the peace movement while doing so, is fine, but not to report that lots of Muslim dissidents are gathering.

The entire explanation of the motives of the recent Blackburn pro-Taliban march has disappeared - now it's implied by assocation with CND march reportage that Blackburn was a peace march, which is a complete reversal of the original BBC article and the low attendance of 30 is promiently pointed out.

A box-out of Tasaddiq Rehman's extremist pro-taliban statement is still located in the middle of the CND reportage, assocating it with the CND marches, epecially as he is identified as a 'march organiser', and it is only later in the article that it becomes possible to infer (it's never explictly stated) that that he was an organiser of the pro-taliban march, and not a peace march organiser.

Evidence of the hasty rewrite: the article states at the start that Blackburn, along with many other, much bigger, marches on the same day occurred peacefully, yet further down there's still a paragraph reporting in particualr that the 30-strong Blackburn march passed off peacefully, with no explanation as to why this was foccused on (it was a pro-Taliban march), when it has already been stated in the opening paragraph as being uneventful.

Most shamefully of all perhaps is that the misquote at the end about there only being 1.5 million Muslims in the world is still there.

In conclusion, a better attempt at black propaganda, I think, more subtle, with some cunning hiding of key facts to make the story elgantly misleading, but it's disgraced by an infantile mistake at the end.

-tomato



Protesters demand end to bombing


About 200 protesters marched through York

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets across England to call for an end to the bombing of Afghanistan.
Police say the demonstrations, in towns and cities such as London, Blackburn and York, passed off peacefully.

One of the larger rallies was in Bolton, Greater Manchester, where 250 people gathered in the town's Victoria Square.

However a planned march in Blackburn, where organisers had declared up to 1,000 people were to take part, attracted only 30 participants.

In York, about 200 protesters called for an end to the war.

'Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban are the true representatives of the Muslim world'
Demonstration organiser Tasaddiq Rehman

During the two-hour demonstration, protesters chanted anti-war slogans and held aloft banners.

Demonstrators paused for a minute's silence in St Helen's Square in honour of the victims of the 11 September atrocities before progressing to St Sampson's Square where a People's Parliament was held.

Becky Chamberlain, 21, a history student at the York University said: "I'm not a pacifist but after weeks of bombing with an unknown number of innocent victims I feel enough is enough."

A spokesman for Lancashire Police said a demonstration of about 30 people in Blackburn passed off without incident.

The group marched in the town, which is within the constituency of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, before hearing speeches outside the Town Hall.

One of the organisers, Tasaddiq Rehman, said the war against the Taleban and bin Laden was a war against the whole Muslim world.

'Crusader war'

"Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban are the true representatives of the Muslim world," he said.

"The Christian crusader war that's being declared against the Taleban and people of Afghanistan by Tony Blair and George Bush is a Christian war against the Muslim world, so therefore that war involves the Muslims of Britain.

"On that basis, the Muslims of Britain are at this very moment at war against the British and American Governments."

The demonstration followed a rally in Blackburn last month, when hundreds of Muslims gathered to protest against terrorism and the international response to it.

Quiet vigil

Anti-war protesters gathering for the CND vigil in London on Saturday afternoon were told by organisers not to chant or bring banners or placards.

Anti-war protesters also gathered outside Downing Street in September

A CND spokeswoman said: "Our vigil will be in remembrance of those who died in the US on 11 September and those who are dying now as a result of the bombing of Afghanistan.

"It is not intended to rile people's anger but rather to stir their emotions and thoughts."

In north-west London, the World Ahul Bayt Islamic League (Wabil), which has members in 87 countries, held a conference to sign an Islamic declaration against terrorism.

Wabil secretary general Sayyed Mohammed Musawi said: "It has been a matter of deep regret that a tiny minority of misguided Muslims have made statements which appear to justify the terrorist acts of 11 September.

"These remarks fuel anger against the rest of the Muslims in the world who number about 1.5 million.

"All terrorism is a crime against humanity and totally un-Islamic."

I don't think the BBC ditched the pro-Taliban part of the story because of a D-notice. NUJ members like me wrote lengthy letters quoting the journalists' code of conduct and how the BBC, by publishing this kind of black propaganda, was unprofessional. While you might not believe it, many journalists hate to be associated with the kind of hate-mongering gutter journalism seen in the tabloid newspapers. I believe this kind of pressure put the BBC on-line editorial staff in retreat. Now they know they are being watched by their colleagues.