David Sapsted, The National, UK’s Islam Channel under investigation, 28 Mar 2010 "Britain’s most popular Muslim TV channel is to be investigated by the government’s broadcasting watchdog after being accused of promoting extremists.
"The Office of Communications (Ofcom) took action after an in-depth survey of the programmes on the Islam Channel by the Quilliam Foundation, a moderate Islamic think tank based in London."
The press release is here:
"The report, based on Quilliam’s recording and monitoring of the channel’s output over a three-month period, found that there were several key problematic trends in its output:
"- Promotion of backward attitudes to women. The Islam Channel’s presenters and preferred guests repeatedly promote socially conservative, Wahhabi-influenced views of women, which see female freedom as a threat to social harmony.
"- Intolerance towards other sects and religions. Religious preachers featured on Islam Channel programmes such as IslamiQA repeatedly make derogatory remarks to the followers of other forms of religious expression and urge viewers to reject the practices of non-Muslims and non-Wahhabi Muslims alike.
"- Promotion of extremism. The Islam Channel has also promoted extremist individuals and groups, for instance, by advertising recorded lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, the pro-al-Qaeda preacher, on the channel and allowing members and supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir to host religious programmes. The Channel also uses the phrase ‘human bombs’ to describe suicide bombers."
The Talal Rajab, Quilliam Foundation report, 'Reprogramming British Muslims' are here [pdf link]. I haven't read this report yet. Expect plenty of opinion to be generated online
