By 3news.co.nz staff
Stars of the hit motoring show Top Gear are in hot water again after donning burqas for a journey across the Middle East.
The show has drawn religious criticism after Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond disguised themselves as women while filming a Christmas show in Syria, wearing Islamic face veils which revealed only their eyes, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The episode - broadcast on the BBC on Boxing Day to a reported six million viewers – showed the men tracing the path of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem, driving from Iraq to Israel.
But the burqa-style clothing has prompted complaints from Muslims in Britain, who say the show mocked their religion.
Controversial Islamic activist Anjem Choudary told the Daily Mail the burqa was a "symbol of our religion and people should not make jokes about it in any way".
"It would have been equally bad even if they'd not been in a country mainly populated by Muslims," he said.
Other viewers have taken to Twitter and forums to express their disgust, with one writing “Death to America” on a Yahoo! Forum and another tweeting the show’s hosts deserved to “get hit by an IED”.
“Why didn’t they appreciate that if you’re planning jokes and statements about religion and Middle East politics you have to carefully consider each one to see whether it is or isn’t overstepping the mark?” says viewer Mary Wescott.
The outfit was designed as a joke for co-presenter James May, who ended up in hospital after falling in the Syrian desert and hitting his head on rocks.
After his recovery, Clarkson and Hammond greeted him at the hospital dressed in burqas, which they said was also a useful disguise on the road.
The trio took the journey to Israel to present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the ‘Baby Jesus’ – a miniature version of The Stig.
“No-one has mentioned the insults to Christianity,” 61-year-old Tony Stephens told the Daily Star. “Is that fun? I don’t think so.”
It is the second religious furore involving Clarkson this year.
In July he told Top Gear viewers that he had seen a Muslim woman wearing sexy lingerie beneath her gown.
3 News
source: newshub archive
