A hate preacher banned from entering Britain has been broadcasting messages into people’s homes via satellite TV.
Zakir Naik, 45, claims “every Muslim should be a terrorist” and was prevented from visiting the UK by Home Secretary Theresa May, 54, last year. Eight months on and the Islamic loudmouth is a key figure in poisonous satellite channel Peace TV, which is being shown in the UK.
Yesterday broadcasting watchdog Ofcom revealed it was investigating the channel after a complaint from a viewer about its extremist messages. Programmes on Peace TV have praised Mujahideen fighters in Iraq, labelled Jews an “enemy of Islam” and claimed 9/11 was an “inside job”.
Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: “The Home Secretary dealt with Naik extremely effectively. I think she will be furious to discover he still has a licence to spread his poison on satellite television. Ofcom should revoke it immediately.”
Naik was banned from entering the country after it was judged his presence was “not conducive to the public good”. During the British court case, Home Office officials also suggested his sermons acted as inspiration for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
During his appeal, lawyers for the firebrand revealed he was chairman of Universal Broadcasting Corporation Ltd, a company registered in Britain. UBCL has held the broadcasting licence for Peace TV since 2007.
Naik was also named as chairman of the Islamic Research Foundation International, which appears to have given £1.5million to the channel in 2009.
Hannah Stuart, of the Centre of Social Cohesion, said: “Zakir Naik has been excluded from the UK. To allow him to continue to broadcast here makes a mockery of that decision.”
An Ofcom spokesman said: “We are in the middle of an investigation about Peace TV. Ofcom will not tolerate extremism on British television and transgressors will be dealt with.” But Peace TV was defiant, with a spokesman for the channel saying: “We have received no complaints in the last two years.”
See also Evening Standard, 11 February 2011
The “every Muslim should be a terrorist” quote is taken from Naik’s response to a 2003 Times of India report about a group of police officers, including an Inspector Angre, “who between them, have gunned down more than 300 alleged criminals in the past five years. The very mention of their names evokes terror in the underworld”. Dr Naik stated: “The moment the underworld hear the name of Inspector Angre, they are terrified, so Inspector Angre of the Mumbai Police Force is a terrorist for the underworld of Mumbai.”
He continued: “As far as terrorist is concerned, I tell the Muslims that every Muslim should be a terrorist…. What is the meaning of the word terrorist? Terrorist by definition means a person who terrorises. When a robber sees a policeman he’s terrified. So for a robber, a policeman is a terrorist. So in this context every Muslim should be a terrorist to the robber…. Every Muslim should be a terrorist to each and every anti-social element. I’m aware that terrorist more commonly is used for a person who terrorises an innocent person. In this context, no Muslim should even terrorise a single innocent human being.”
It is quite clear that the “every Muslim should be a terrorist quote” is taken out of context in order to attribute to Naik a position that is the opposite of the one he actually holds.
As for Naik having “labelled Jews an ‘enemy of Islam'”, that would appear to refer to a speech in which he quoted from the Qur’anic verse stating that “strongest in enmity towards the Muslims are the Jews and the pagans” and continued: “[The Qur’an] does not say that the Muslims should fight with the Jews … the Jews, by nature as a whole, will be against Muslims … there are many Jews who are good to Muslims, but as a whole … the Qur’an tells us, as whole, they will be our staunchest enemy.”
Quite aside from the fact that this is a crudely literalist intepretation of verse 5.82 of the Qur’an (as Qaradawi points out, “this verse talks about an historical position” – it refers to a specific conflict between Muslims and Jews in seventh-century Arabia) Naik’s position is clearly objectionable. While he emphasises that the Qur’an “does not say that Muslims should fight with the Jews” and points out that “there are many Jews who are good to Muslims”, he does promote a stereotypical view of Jewish attitudes towards Muslims.
But Naik is hardly alone in this. Earlier this week Roy Greenslade got into trouble with the Jewish Chronicle over a piece on his Guardian blog. Criticising the Daily Star‘s proprietor Richard Desmond over the paper’s support for the EDL, Greenslade wrote: “As a Jew, he may well have negative views of Muslims.” However, nobody is actually arguing that Greenslade should be banned from blogging for the Guardian.
It might be added that Naik’s views on Jews’ attitudes towards Muslims are significantly less offensive that Melanie Phillips’s views on Muslims’ attitudes towards Jews. Phillips is of course a well-known media commentator in the UK, regularly appearing for example on Radio 4’s Moral Maze. Yet we don’t hear anyone demanding that the BBC should have its broadcasting licence withdrawn.
Finally, the spectacle of a spokesperson for the Centre for Social Cohesion supporting a ban on Naik and Peace TV sets a new standard in chutzpah. The CSC’s director is Douglas Murray, who is an admirer of the EDL, an organisation dedicated to whipping up hostility towards Muslims, and has himself openly called for the persecution of Muslim communities living in Europe. If people are to be banned from travelling to other countries on the grounds that they could incite hatred, countries outside the UK might like to consider imposing a ban on Douglas Murray.