UK: BBC Woman’s Hour faces firestorm of criticism over ‘hostile’ interview with Muslim leader

BY ROBERT SPENCER, JIHAD WATCH

This is incredible. 100 “prominent figures” are enraged because a BBC interviewer asked the Muslim Council of Britain’s Zara Mohammed some tough questions. Many of them no doubt signed on to this because they assume that Muslims are subjected to widespread discrimination and harassment in Britain and all over the West, and so should be given special consideration. But the fact that there is any outrage at all over this is an indication of how far that assumption is from the truth. Zara Mohammed is not downtrodden; she is privileged. That’s why there is this outcry: Emma Barnett dared to challenge a privileged person whom she should have regarded with reverence and treated with kid gloves.

Note that the opponents of jihad violence and Sharia oppression are routinely subjected to “hostile” treatment on the BBC and everywhere else in the international establishment media. I myself know that when I receive a media inquiry from an establishment outlet such as the BBC or the New York Times that the inquirer’s intent is to make me, and opposition to jihad terror in general, look as bad as possible. No one raises any uproar about it, either, and I wouldn’t expect them to. But the dichotomy shows who has the privilege in British society, and all over the West today, and who doesn’t.

“BBC Woman’s Hour accused of ‘hostile’ interview with Muslim leader,” BBC, February 18, 2021:

A BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour interview with the first woman to lead the Muslim Council of Britain has been criticised for being “strikingly hostile”.

More than 100 politicians, writers and other prominent figures have signed an open letter complaining about Zara Mohammed’s “mistreatment” on the show.

It said host Emma Barnett “appeared intent on re-enforcing damaging and prejudicial tropes” about Islam.

A BBC spokesperson said the corporation would reply “in due course”.

The letter’s signatories include Conservative peer Baroness Warsi, Labour MPs Diane Abbott and Naz Shah, journalist Afua Hirsch, Rizzle Kicks’ Jordan Stephens and the Muslim Council of Britain’s founding secretary general Sir Iqbal Sacranie.

“The BBC needs to address its engagement with and representation of Muslim women,” it said.

In particular, it took issue with Barnett for “persistently” asking how many female imams there are in Britain.

“Despite Mohammed’s repeated claims that religious adjudication was not within the parameters of her role leading a civil society organisation, Barnett asked the question about female imams four times, each time interrupting Mohammed’s answer,” it said.

The interview “mirrored the style and tone of an accountability interview with a politician, rather than authentically recognising and engaging in what this represented for British Muslim women”, the letter added….

The programme later deleted the clip from Twitter, however, saying it “should have included more of the radio interview to provide full context of the discussion”.