As I have said before on here (see links at bottom of article), Britain’s Islamic community radio stations have a serious extremism problem. Several of them have in recent years been either fined or closed down by Britain’s regulator of the radio spectrum Ofcom for various offences such as broadcasting hours upon hours of Islamic hate preachers and dispensing medical advice that was little more than Islamic quackery.
Islamic groups have exploited the community radio licensing system for a while now and I am pleased to see Ofcom start to get a grip on this problem but I believe that they are still being too lenient to offending Islamic community radio stations. I think that when, as in today’s story about dodgy Muslim community radio stations, not only has a hate preacher been broadcast but there is also evidence of piss poor station management, then a fine is not sufficient punishment. I think that in these cases either a temporary or permanent station closedown should be imposed. The report in the trade magazine Radio Today has an account of the process that saw Radio Ikhlas, which broadcasts to the Normanton area of Derby, fined £10,000 for a 21 minute hate rant about the peaceful Ahmadi Islamic group and for really poor station management.
Radio Today said:
Ofcom has imposed a £10,000 financial penalty on Radio Ikhlas Limited, after material broadcast on its community radio station broke the rules.
Ofcom’s investigation found that during a current affairs ‘phone-in’ programme on Radio Ikhlas, the presenter made several statements which it considered were abusive and derogatory to the Ahmadiyya community.
The regulator concluded it was a serious breach of the Broadcasting Code, which warranted the imposition of statutory sanctions. These include a financial penalty and a direction to the broadcaster to air a statement of Ofcom’s findings on a date – and in a form – to be determined by Ofcom.
The two-hour phone-in programme in question was aired on 7 September 2017 at 15:00, discussing the on-going crisis surrounding the treatment of the Rohingya Muslim community in Myanmar.
The station said the presenter in question did not show up for his designated time of broadcasting between 12:00 and 13:00, nor did he notify anybody connected with the station that he would be broadcasting a show later. The station manager was on bereavement leave on that day, but there was a staff member present in the studio until 13:00 and usually during the afternoon, pre-recorded content is broadcast and the Licensee therefore did not consider that the output needed to be monitored.
However, the presenter turned up at 15:00, and using his own keys to enter the studio he broadcast his programme without notifying any members of staff and without any supervision.
In the middle of the programme, at around 15:50, there was a 21-minute segment, during which the presenter discussed the beliefs of the Ahmadiyya community in offensive and pejorative.
Radio Today added that the programme presenter ranted on about how Ahmadis were ‘enemies of Pakistan’, ‘enemies of Islam’, ‘hypocrites’ and ‘defamers of Islam’. If you know anything at all about Islam then you will know that these are fighting words. They are words that would likely propel some Muslims hearing it to commit acts of violence against Ahmadis. These statements aimed at the Ahmadis are very similar as the words that have been used in Islamic communities and in Islamic countries to incite violence against not just Ahmadis but also secularists and those who call for the reform of Islam. The actions of Radio Ikhlas constitute in my opinion to a direct and credible threat of violence therefore the fine imposed by Ofcom is not sufficient punishment for this particular radio-related crime.
If the boot was on the other foot and a non Muslim community radio station had been shown to have piss poor management and station security practises and which had broadcast 21 minutes of an extremist calling for the death of Muslims, then you can bet your bottom dollar that this particular station would be on temporary if not permanent shutdown in double quick time. This is the equivalent of what Radio Ikhlas has done. They’ve broadcast a violence inciting programme with no on air challenge to the views of the promoter of violence from a station that looks as if it is managed by a group that could not organise a piss up in a brewery. A £10,000 fine is far too lenient for this offence. There is no real guarantee that this station will improve its management and the excuse the station managers made that they believed there was no need to monitor pre-recorded output, is in my opinion either the management showing woeful disregard for licensing conditions, or complete bullshit.
I would urge the readers of this blog to write to Ofcom to express any concerns they may have regarding the misuse of the resource of the airwaves by Islamic extremists holding broadcast licences. Readers should also be asking Ofcom why this station, which broadcast a plain incitement to violence, is being treated in this apparent lenient manner when they have compounded the problem of the extremist broadcast by appearing unfit to hold a broadcast licence? You can contact the relevant section of Ofcom that deals with community radio via the link below.
Links
Other stories from this site about dodgy Islamic community radio stations:
Muslim station broadcast Al Qaida preacher
More on the jihad promoting Iman FM
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2017/08/04/more-on-the-jihad-promoting-imam-fm/
Excessively lenient punishment of a Muslim community radio station in Nottingham
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2018/03/01/more-over-lenient-punishments-for-miscreant-muslims/
They took their time but Ofcom finally shut down the jihad promoting Iman FM
Licensed Islamic Dawa station in Nottinghamshire caught broadcasting incitement to violence against Non Muslims
What is it with Islamic community radio stations and on air misbehaviour?
