A UK broadcasting watchdog has investigated a Sheffield radio station for broadcasting an Islamic chant said to contain “jihadi lyrics” promoting terrorism.
The Office of Communications (Ofcom) said in a ruling published on Monday that Link FM, whose licence is held by the Pakistan Muslim Centre, had twice broadcast a piece of Islamic devotional music in December 2020 “which contained material likely to encourage or incite the commission of crime or lead to disorder”.
Ofcom investigated the broadcasts after members of the public complained that one devotional, or nasheed, broadcast in Arabic on Link FM’s morning show had contained what they described as “jihadi lyrics” which were “promoting terrorism”.
The “Jundallah”, meaning “Soldiers of Allah” in Arabic, was broadcast on December 16th and 22nd and when translated was found to contain lyrics such as: “We will march forward, never will we yield/ When the call comes to mobilise for the battle/ We return as soldiers answering the call.”
And: “We will go forth as soldiers crushing our enemies/ With Qur’an of our Lord as our guide.”
Ofcom determined that “although this Nasheed did not contain any direct calls to violent action, we considered the cumulative effect of its lyrics and imagery was to condone, promote and actively encourage others to participate in violent acts as a form of devout religious expression and therefore amounted to an indirect call to action,” referencing some of the lyrics mentioned above.
“Nasheeds which contain messages like those in Jundallah are used by terrorist groups to attract potential recruits,” the report said.
The Pakistan Muslim Centre responded to the findings, saying they “wholeheartedly [apologised] for the error”, blaming the broadcasts in part on the presenter not understanding the context of “Soldiers of Allah” because she cannot read Arabic — though she may have guessed at the content, with Ofcom noting that the radio DJ had twice referred to the piece as “Jundallah, by Soldiers of Allah” on air.
The broadcaster also said the presenter had found and downloaded the nasheed not because of its content but because it was “melodious and harmonic in nature”.
In its ruling, Ofcom conceded that while the devotional was broadcast by mistake and Link FM had since put in additional compliance measures, the regulator “considered these breaches to be serious and repeated in two different broadcasts. Therefore, our Decision is that we are minded to consider these breaches for the imposition of a statutory sanction.”
Link FM is not the first Sheffield-based radio station to have been found in breach of Ofcom’s code of conduct in relation to radical Islamist content in recent years.
In early July 2017, Imam FM had its licence suspended after it had broadcast 25 hours of Islamic sermons by al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki during Ramadan “encouraging and condoning” violence against non-Muslims — which broadcasters had claimed was done by mistake. Later that month, Imam FM was taken off air.
The following year, Nottingham’s Radio Dawn was determined by Ofcom to have broadcast a nasheed in December 2o16 that suggested violence against non-Muslims would bring glory to Islam, and fined the station £2,000.
The Karimia Institute, Radio Dawn’s licencee, also said that the broadcast was accidental and that the nasheed’s meaning may not have been understood and would not have been “chosen for its content but, rather… for the melodious and harmonic nature of the track”.