IF the letters column of the Citizen can be taken as a reliable barometer, it would appear a right old storm is brewing over alleged Moslem censorship of a billboard advertisement in the Audley area of Blackburn.

The giant poster, part of an effervescent promotional campaign for Blackburn Shopping Centre, featured a young couple covered by 'designer labels' and little else.

The majority of indigenous East Lancastrians, by now immune to Page Three and screen nudity, hardly gave it thought, though the images no doubt got their intended message across. Certainly very few, if any, would have found the billboard 'offensive'.

However, it was a very different matter to Moslems. They DO find public nudity offensive, especially when a VERY public example faces their place of worship.

They changed it, or so we are led to believe, covering the models in Purdah dress, which left the woman displaying only her eyes, as Islam decrees.

The Shopping Centre management were quick to react, apologising for any offence caused and replacing the billboard.

That should have been the end of the matter. But it appears the Moslem cover-up has led to anger among whites who believe the British way of life is being gradually and stealthily eroded.

Their argument is based on the assumption that if someone from Blackburn went to an Islamic country and tried to override local custom with some views, religious or otherwise, of their own, they would pretty soon be shown the door - or locked up for light years!

Anyone who has travelled extensively knows full well that the Islamic code is strict and demanding. In Western societies, moral codes and standards of behaviour are, in general terms, considerably more relaxed.

So anyone from non-Islamic countries who ventures into the East expecting to Carry On Camping is in for a very rude awakening, possibly by the religious police!

Locals believe that anyone coming to the UK to settle should be prepared to follow the same rules, or at least something along the lines of: 'O.K, live the way you want to if you must, but don't expect us to change our way of life to accomodate you.'

You would get very few level-headed people on both sides of the religious divide - Moslem and Christian - who would argue with the logic of that statement.

The problem is, of course, that Islam, as stated earlier in this column, is strict and its elders must have considered it very much a matter of principle to cover the offending poster.

In so doing they have given religious and racial bigots enough firewood to keep this this little pot boiling for a week or two.

Personally I believe the Moslems acted for all the right reasons. They weren't trying to impose their beliefs on anyone, merely trying to protect their own.

Let's leave it at that shall we, for God's sake?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.