BBC Pro-Muslim?

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Sikhs and Hindus accuse BBC of pro-Muslim bias
By Jerome Taylor
Monday, 8 September 2008

London Independent

Hindu and Sikh leaders have accused the BBC of pandering to Britain's Muslim community by making a disproportionate number of programmes on Islam at the expense of covering other Asian religions.

A breakdown of programming from the BBC's Religion and Ethics department, seen by The Independent, reveals that since 2001, the BBC made 41 faith programmes on Islam, compared with just five on Hinduism and one on Sikhism.

Critics say the disproportionate amount of programming is part of an apparent bias within the BBC towards Islam since the attacks of 11 September 2001, which has placed an often uncomfortable media spotlight on Britain's Muslims.

Ashish Joshi, the chairman of the Network of Sikh Organisation's (NSO) media monitoring group, which obtained the numbers, said many Hindu and Sikh licence-fee payers felt cheated. "People in our communities are shocked," he said. "We are licence-fee payers and we want to know why this has happened. The bias towards Islam at the expense of Hindus and particularly Sikhs is overwhelming and appears to be a part of BBC policy."

Indarjit Singh, the editor of the Sikh Messenger and a regular contributor to BBC Radio4's Thought for the Day, said that the public broadcaster was focusing too much attention on Islam at the expense of other religious communities.

"I think it's probably unthinking, or inadvertent, but the bias is there," he said. "I do know that within the Sikh community especially there is a feeling of concern over the lack of portrayal of their religion on television. There is a feeling of being brushed aside."

He added: "The wider community is missing out on what the different religions have to offer society. Of course it is important to educate non-Muslims about Islam but it is also important to provide informative, open and respectful programming on all religions."

In a letter sent in July to the NSO, the head of the BBC's Religion and Ethics, Michael Wakelin, denied that there was any bias. He said the demographic makeup of Britain meant that Britain's 1.6 million Muslims outnumber Hindus and Sikhs by two to one. "Therefore," he wrote, "if Muslims get 60 minutes a year, the Sikhs and Hindus should share 30 minutes each." Further content on Islam, he added, was "no doubt sparked by the interest in the faith following 9/11".

The latest row over the BBC's cultural output follows a dispute raging at the BBC's Asian Network radio service, where more than 20 former and current employees have written a letter of complaint alleging that the station ignores Muslim listeners and plays less Pakistani and Bangladeshi music than it should.

A spokesman for the BBC said the broadcaster was committed to representing all of Britain's faiths and communities. "We reject any claims of bias," he said. "In our religion and ethics content alone, we have covered Hindu and Sikh issues this year on The Big Questions, Sunday Life and Extreme Pilgrim. In the autumn we will be covering Diwali from a Sikh perspective and we have a major new series for BBC Two in early 2009, including features on Hinduism and Sikhism."

But a number of MPs, including Rob Marris and Keith Vaz, called on the BBC to do more to represent Britain's minority faiths. "I am disappointed," said Mr Vaz. "It is only right that as licence fee payers all faiths are represented in a way that mirrors their make-up in society. I hope that the BBC ... addresses the problem in its next year of programming."

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A Short History on Racial Profiling - October 30, 2001

It will be interesting to see if the Bush administration uses racial profiling when it decides who to wiretap. See today's NYTimes article "Senate Approves Broadening of Wiretap Powers"

As far as racial profiling is concerned - as the Bin Laden family was being flown away after 9-11, hundreds of Muslims were being called to immigration offices in Los Angeles, having been told they needed to go in for some type of verification of documentation. When they would arrive they were detained by immigration authorities.

The following article was printed by the New York Daily News on October 30, 2001 - about 1,000 Muslims being detained in Los Angeles. It is very difficult to find articles in other major newspapers about this incident.


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INFO SOUGHT ON 1,000 HELD IN PROBE By BOB PORT DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 26
New York Daily News
October 20, 2001

WASHINGTON - Civil rights and Muslim organizations demanded yesterday that the government release the names of nearly 1,000 people detained in the federal terrorism investigation.

Twenty groups filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the identities of those arrested, charges against them, where they are held and names of their lawyers.

That information should not be kept secret, they said, and by keeping it confidential, the FBI, prosecutors and judges are abusing their power.

The groups also asked to be told where federal courts have issued secret orders declaring such information to be confidential.

"The secrecy orders themselves appear to be secret," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, which spearheaded the effort. "The denial of this basic information violates the public's right to know."

Morton Halperin, chairman of the group, said no one is seeking to know investigative information or details - just who was arrested and why. "It's simply impossible to see how the release of that information could harm national security," he said.

Some detainees have been held for more than a week without their families knowing, or held without their families knowing where they are, said Gregory Nojeim, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union office in Washington.

Nojeim said he wrote Attorney General John Ashcroft this month and asked about arrestees but got no response.

The Justice Department had no comment yesterday. As of Friday, according to department officials, 977 people had been detained, including 172 on immigration offenses.

from Lexis Nexis