"It is truly galling to see an Islamophobic hatemonger like Kilroy given a platform to propagate his clearly racist views," Bunglawala

LONDON, January 8 (IslamOnline.net) – Infuriated by his "hysterically gratuitous anti-Arab rant," the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) lodged complaints with the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and the BBC urging robust disciplinary action against columnist and presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk.

"It is truly galling to see an Islamophobic hatemonger like Kilroy given a platform to propagate his clearly racist views in a respected mainstream newspaper," said Inayat Bunglawala, Secretary of the MCB Media Committee.

In an article entitled "We Owe Arabs Nothing" published in The Sunday Express on January 4, Silk wrote: "Apart from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the west - what do they (Arabs) contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful? Anything really valuable? Something we really need, could not do without? No, nor can I.

"What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors?"

In a complaint letter sent to the PCC Tuesday, January 7, Bunglawala described Kilroy as "a man who positively revels in airing his anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views."

The Muslim activist accused the presenter-cum-columnist of failing, intentionally or not, to draw a line of distinction between the 9-11 perpetrators, accused by Washington of being mostly Saudis, and the 200 to 300 million strong Arab population worldwide.

"This seems to be a clear case of indiscriminate generalization and as such, blatantly racist," he said.

In 1995, Kilroy wrote in the Daily Express that "Muslims everywhere behave with equal savagery" and charged they "conspired to kill the Pope."

Bunglawala asserted that an immediate action from the PCC was needed to "reassure the Muslim and Arab communities in Britain and abroad that you will not in any way accept the demonisation of entire peoples."

BBC Investigating

Doyle said Kilroy's article "condemns in one brushstroke an entire 200-300 million people"

The Muslim Council also sent a similar complaint to the BBC that the content of Kilroy's column was incompatible with his work as morning chat show host on BBC1.

It asked why "a publicly funded body such as the BBC" would tolerate such "ignorant, extremely derogatory and indisputably racist" remarks by one of its staff at a time when all its other employees are being forbidden to express controversial views in the press.

"We wonder whether you would consider it proper to give the same kind of prominence to a presenter who was so openly anti-black or anti-Jewish?" Bunglawala wrote.

He charged that Kilroy has clearly violated the BBC Producer’s Guidelines which states: "Our audiences rightly expect the highest…ethical standards from the BBC…values such as impartiality, accuracy, fairness, editorial independence and our commitment to appropriate standards of taste and decency."

For his part, Chris Doyle, Director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, said Kilroy's article "condemns in one brushstroke an entire 200-300 million people."

"How can any British Arab or Muslim go on his program and not feel intimidated by someone who quite clearly denigrates them?" he was quoted as saying by The Guardian Wednesday, January 8.

"To have somebody making - for most people - racist statements about Arabs raises questions about whether he's a suitable person to front his program."

According to the British daily, the BBC is already looking into the issue.

"We are looking into how the Sunday Express column which Robert Kilroy-Silk writes in his capacity as a freelance fits with his on-screen work for the BBC," a spokeswoman for the broadcast said Tuesday.

BBC guidelines introduced in the wake of the Hutton inquiry say that freelance writing by staff "should not bring the BBC into disrepute or undermine the integrity or impartiality of BBC programs or presenters".