A new BBC comedy sketch titled “The Real Housewives of ISIS” is causing controversy.

 

HASHTAG DEATH TO THE WEST

[Note by Tom Gross]

Not to everyone’s taste perhaps, but remarkably risqué for the usually politically correct BBC, is a new BBC 2 comedy sketch titled “The Real Housewives of ISIS”.

You can watch a clip here:

The sketch – complete with Rochdale accents from northern England – is a satire on an American TV series featuring wealthy housewives in New York and Beverly Hills. It mocks the hundreds of British Muslim women who have left their homes to join the Islamic State. Among other things, it shows them taking selfies wearing suicide vests and posting them to Instagram.

Some BBC viewers have complained that it is “tasteless” and “deeply sinister,” especially at a time when Yazidi and other sex slaves are still being assaulted and raped in Isis strongholds in Syria and Iraq, as well as in Libya and Nigeria.

But others argue that the way to stop impressionable young people in Rochdale and other towns in northern England and elsewhere from joining Isis, is to poke fun at them.

The clip originally appeared on BBC 2’s Facebook page, and has generated tens of thousands of readers’ comments.

The BBC has declined to make any public comment on the sketch, which is part of a comedy show titled “Revolting”. It is produced by the makers of the hit BBC political satire “Have I Got News For You”.

The comedy duo behind Revolting have previously been criticized by Israel after they filmed themselves pretending to be building contractors and visited shops in London to announce that their businesses would be confiscated to expand the nearby Israeli embassy.

 

* Scroll down here for more on the plight of Yazidi sex slaves, and a link to a video of a remarkable plea by the only female Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament.

* Scroll down here for depictions of, and the controversy around, the so-called Mohammed cartoons.

 

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