Leeds Raids and Makkah Mosque
Administrator on August 28th, 2005
Makkah Mosque would like to express disappointment and concern over the filming of the Makkah Mosque for the BBC News on 12th July 2005.
We respectfully requested BBC to refrain from filming our newly purpose built mosque for the simple reason that mosques (and Makkah Mosque in particular) have no connection with terrorist activities or terrorists. In fact, Muslim leaders and Mosque committees have been at the forefront of condemning the atrocities that occurred in London on 7th July. When Makkah Mosque was shown in the BBC News bulletin, and subsequently in other newspapers and media coverage, it had the potential to indicate to the viewers that somehow Makkah Mosque was linked to the suspected terrorists. We thus fear that the showing of the Mosque on the News may attract retaliation and reprisal.
As a result of the filming, Makkah Mosque has to step-up its security to deal with any unwanted and unpleasant situation. This security is not provided by the police but by individual volunteers who are deeply concerned with the well-being of the Makkah Mosque.
The question we are really asking is: Why involve anyone in a news story when it has absolutely no connection to the news story? In future, we hope media would show a bit more responsibility and honour the feelings of a community.
Makkah Mosque has been built in a peaceful and harmonious neighbourhood of Leeds, and we will do our utmost to maintain and preserve this peace and harmony in the future.
