A bit of a clarification on his views about the religious apartheid kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Pat Condell, an outspoken atheist and veteran stand-up comic, uploaded the clip called "Welcome to Saudi Britain" to the popular video-sharing website following claims that judgements made under Islamic law are now legally binding. In the four-minute clip he denounces the "patriarchal bigotry" of Muslim men and the "corrupt" regime of Saudi Arabia. He refers to women wearing burqas as "letterbox ladies" and ridicules a Muslim warehouse worker who is suing Tesco for making him carry crates of alcohol.

In this he compares Saudi Arabian Islam to Nazism


Condell also pours scorn on the "social engineering" and "doublethink" of the Labour Government and urges viewers to sign a Downing Street petition against the adoption of Sharia in Britain, which has received more than 4,000 signatures.

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But fans of Condell, a veteran of Britain's alternative comedy circuit who has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and who regularly appeared on the BBC Radio 1 show Loose Talk in the 1990s, are now putting copies of the video elsewhere on YouTube. Visitors to the website have condemned YouTube for censoring the film, while the National Secular Society has written to it in protest.

The NSS said: "As usual, he does not mince his words, but he is not saying anything that is untrue. His main thrust is one of outrage on behalf of those Muslim women who will suffer because they are forced to have their marital problems solved in a male-dominated Sharia court." Condell made the video after it was reported that ministers had "quietly sanctioned" Sharia courts to make legally binding rulings on cases such as those involving divorce.

However the Government insisted the panels were only using long-standing laws on arbitration, and legal experts said divorce cases ruled on by Sharia tribunal would still need to go through civil courts. Dhimmi Watch