Zakir Naik’s Peace TV gets banned in the UK for describing gay people as worse than pigs. A total of four programmes aired by the channel have found to have breached the broadcasting the rules following which the channel was stripped of its British broadcasting licence.
Peace TV is a Dubai based channel founded by Zakir Naik in 2006. The channel was broadcast on Sky in the UK. The British media regulator Ofcom banned the channel for breaching rules on incitement to crime, hate speech, abuse and offence.
As per reports, in a show called “Strengthening Your Family, The Valley of the Homosexuals” aired on March 2018, said that homosexuality was “a very unnatural type of love that is energised by the influence of [Satan]”. In reference to HIV, the channel also said, “from a disease they contracted because they are homosexual”.
It’s presenter Imam Qasim Khan condemned the open portrayal and legalization of homosexuality. He also said, “Even an animal that is defiled by Islam, the pig – as nasty and corrupted and contaminated as a pig is – you never see two male pigs that are trying to have sex together. That’s insanity. These are animals. Human beings are supposed to be dignified, they’re thinking beings.”
In another show aired on November 2017, the channel advocated for the execution of magicians or known as sahir in Islam. A scholar Shaikh Ashfaque Salafi said, “The correct reliable and majority opinion is that the punishment for a sahir is that the person should be killed”.
The channel also breached the rules in two other instances. In one programme the channel advocates the killing of people who have left Islam. Another programme said that getting underaged girls married was not a problem, even if the law forbids them from doing so.
The licence of Peace TV was held by Lord Production. The company in its defence said that the programme was based on teachings of Islam. It said that its programmes were “derived from a particular religious viewpoint, of which its viewers would be aware, and that such programming includes advice to those viewers as to how to lead their lives. It should therefore not be surprising if, at times, such advice causes offence to different sections of the public”.
Peace TV has already been banned in India and Bangladesh. The speeches made by Zakir Naik were found to be ‘highly objectionable’ by the Government of India. Peace TV has often been used by ISIS recruiters for indoctrination and brainwashing.
Two months ago, the channel was banned in Sri Lanka Days after the Easter Sunday bomb attacks. It’s founder Zakir Naik in spreading hatred between religious groups and for inciting Muslim youth to join in the jihad against non-believers of Islam. He used to use his NGO ‘Islamic Research Foundation’ (IRF) and a TV channel (Peace TV) to air his hate speeches in the country.
The Enforcement Directorate sought a non-bailable warrant against Zakir Naik for being involved in a Rs 193 crore money-laundering case. A special PMLA court has ordered radical Islamist Zakir Naik to physically appear before the court on July 31. Zakir Naik is currently sheltered by the Malaysian government despite repeated requests for extradition.
