Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s Peace TV fined Rs £3,00,000 for ‘hate speech & highly offensive’ content

New Delhi: Controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who made headlines in India sometime back for alleged hatemongering, found himself in trouble in UK over violation of broadcast guidelines.

Peace TV and Peace TV Urdu, the television channels owned by the Zakir Naik been fined Rs 2.75 crore or £ 300,000 in the United Kingdom. The fine has been levied by UK media watchdog, Ofcom, for broadcasting ‘hate speech and highly offensive comment’.

The London-based regulator has fined licence holders of Peace TV Urdu 200,000 pounds and Peace TV 100,000 pounds for breaking its broadcasting rules.

Penalized for offensive content

“Our investigations found that programmes broadcast on Peace TV Urdu and Peace TV contained hate speech and highly offensive content, which in one instance was likely to incite crime,” it said in a statement.

Peace TV Urdu and Peace TV were international satellite television channels which broadcast religious programmes from an Islamic perspective.

“We concluded that the content represented serious failures of compliance with our broadcasting rules, which warranted fines. The former licence holders, Club TV and Lord Production, must now pay £200,000 and £100,000 respectively to HM Paymaster General”, said Ofcom in a statement.

After further breaches, Ofcom moved to suspend Peace TV Urdu’s licence in November 2019, and both licences were surrendered.

Preacher wanted in India for inciting extremism

The controversial preacher has been wanted in India for money laundering and inciting extremism through hate speeches. He left India in 2016 and subsequently moved to Malaysia, where he was granted permanent residency.

Last week, India made a formal request to the Malaysian government for his extradition.