What is going on in UK mosques?

Maybe you don't want to know.

An undercover investigation by the UK-based Channel 4 Dispatches reveals that some of Britain’s leading mosques are perpetuating an intolerant view of Islam, encouraging worshippers to wage jihad against "enemies of Islam" such as the United States and the UK, and hit girls if they refuse to wear hijab.

As The (London) Observer reports, in the video Dispatches made during its 12-month investigation (available on YouTube), a cleric can be seen telling worshippers at the Sparkbrook mosque that “you cannot accept the rule of the kaffir [non-Muslim].”

Another speaker at the same mosque can be seen on video calling democracy “kuffocracy” and referring to it as “the hidden cancerous aim of these people.” At the time he made these remarks, this man was the headmaster of a local Islamic high school, Darul Uloom, according to The Observer, though he has since been fired because the school determined that, to quote Dar Uloom, “many of his opinions were inconsistent with the policies of the school.”

The umbrella organization, UKIM, that oversees the Sparkbrook mosque told The Observer: “We are a nationwide organisation and hold different programmes in our mosques. We are very concerned about this. We have instructed all our branches not to allow any more speakers with radical or fundamentalist views.”

Dispatches also documented that DVDs and internet broadcasts produced by extremist preachers are popular items at a London bookstore at the Regent’s Park Mosque. On one DVD being sold there, a Saudi-trained preacher, Sheikh Feiz, can be seen saying,
“Kaffir is the worst word that can ever be written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt.”

The company that runs the bookstore issued a statement to The Observer saying: “It is totally unfair to blame [us] for any of the views expressed in these lectures.”

Lord Ahmed, described by The Observer as “the convener of the government's Preventing Extremism taskforce” issued the following statement to Channel 4 in response to its documentary: “While I appreciate that exaggerated opinions make good TV, they do not make for good community relations.”