Confronting hatred: BNP activists stung by undercover documentary

Gotcha!

Caught by a surprise BBC documentary called The Secret Agent, the UK’s far-right British National Party has had to answer to allegations (admissions, rather) of hate crimes against British Muslims (those featured on the show were mostly of Pakistani descent), along with diatribes against Africans and Jews (including Conservative leader Michael Howard’s Jewish roots). Party members were caught on tape admitting to assaults on Pakistanis and inciting others to violence. The party leader, Nick Griffin, also called Islam a “wicked, vicious faith.” BBC journalist Jason Gwynne spent six months undercover in the organisation (he was assisted by a disillusioned BNP member), winning the trust of party leaders and taping their stories of racial assault and xenophobia. The programme, which aired last week, prompted police to investigate the allegations (they needed a documentary for this?) and left the BNP struggling for explanations (they claim to have expelled two party members featured in the expose). Days later, Barclays Bank shut down 5 BNP accounts. The group had made strides in the recent past to become more mainstream, winning a notable amount of local council seats and nearly a seat in the European Parliament. Griffin, however, remained defiant, and reasserted his views in a BBC rebuttal. “You give me 20 minutes or an hour – a special programme to dissect the Koran and I will show you that we have a monster in our midst.”

Zahed Amanullah is associate editor of altmuslim.com.  He is based in London, England.