FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Everyone is entitled to their opinion - providing they keep it to themselves!"

The Muslim Council of Great Britain has welcomed Robert Kilroy-Silk's decision to quit his BBC talk show. The council said the presenter's remarks, in the Sunday Express, in which he called Arabs "suicide bombers" and "limb-amputators" had been racist. The Muslim Council of Britain said it hoped the episode showed anti-Arab racism was not acceptable. Secretary-General Iqbal Sacranie said Mr Kilroy-Silk had tried to hide behind the "noble principle of freedom of speech". Mr Sacranie said, "Kilroy-Silk has for a number of years now been making extremely derogatory and xenophobic remarks about Arabs and Muslims."

Some of us still remember a TV programme from a few years ago called "Death of a Princess". Showing a beheading in Saudi Arabia, it caused quite a stir at the time since government thinking is not to upset such countries. Hypocrisy, as usual. Every day in London, that hook-handed cleric, Abu Hamza, inveighs against the West in violent, rabble-rousing speeches. Is he reported, locked away, deported or arrested?

Well no, of course not. If I stood in Derby Market Place making similar inflammatory speeches about Muslims, I'd be arrested in a flash. One law for us and one for them? Not 'alf! At a time when open and honest debate is more then ever called for, we are constantly told by the "Thought Police" not to be beastly to the Arab/Muslim world. We are one of the most tolerant nations on earth and this constriction of free speech is what pushes people into the arms of the British National Party. John Hyde

It seems to me that in this world a person can kill as many men, women and children as they wish without hindrance in any way from the followers of Islam, providing he, she or they are followers of this faith. They stood in our city calling for the genocide of the Jews (Islam will be free when all the Jews are dead). That's racism, but no police action was taken.

We have seen over the past three decades the murder of passengers in numerous acts of aerial piracy by religious regimes which are praised by some in the world of Islam. The organisation to which Mr Aziz belongs to wants to turn England from a land of darkness to the light of Islam. So will we have public executions as are performed in many Muslim countries?

The vile act in New York on September 11 was an act of war no less than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Some in the world of Islam delighted and celebrated this filthy act. To take arms against the Crown if you are a citizen of Great Britain, or if you like the UK, is an act of treason and treason still carries the death penalty.

Any British Muslims who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan should face charges of treason. Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk spoke the truth and for that he has been vilified by bleeding hearts. It is such witch hunts and such letters by Mr Aziz that are changing the hearts and minds of the majority in this country. T P Liscombe