The government has decided to ban broadcast of Peace TV, a channel run by controversial Islamic hate preacher Zakir Naik, in Bangladesh, after allegations rose that he inspired the acts of terrorism of this July.
The Cabinet committee on law and order took the decision in a special meeting on Sunday 10/7, Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu, who heads the panel, told reporters.
Ministers and State Ministers of 12 ministries attended the meeting held at the Home Ministry in the backdrop of two major terrorist attacks in Bangladesh this month of July ’16 (the massacre of foreigners in the Dhaka cafeteria and the bomb attack at the community prayer for Eid, in the North of the country).
Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu a day ago had hinted at banning the 24-hour channel. “Peace TV is not consistent with Muslim society, the Quran, Sunnah, Hadith, Bangladesh’s Constitution, our culture, customs and rituals,” Inu said.
Zakir Naik is the founder and president of Mumbai-based “charity” organisation “Islamic Research Foundation” (IRF), which owns Peace TV. The contents in English, Urdu and Bengali are broadcasted from Dubai.
Initial investigations by Indian authorities have found Naik’s hate speeches to be provocative and objectionable. His explanations on Islam-related issues had also kicked off controversies in many instances.
The tour of the hate preacher in Italy have already made history. Zakir Naik held crowded sermons in Milan and Brescia in 2008 and 2009. The controversial preacher has also been invited to speak in Rome, in the “American Studies Center”, at a meeting where he reiterated that “conversion to Islam is the solution for all mankind.”
In an earlier video-sermon he had frankly explained that if “Osama Bin Laden terrorized America, I’m with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist.” Ahmad Rafat, then deputy director of the press agency AdnKronos recalls that Naik “with a fairly acceptable language for Western culture brought forward very fundamentalist ideas. At some point it began to say that Islam is superior to all religions.”
The sermons of the hate preacher are very popular especially among the educated youth of wealthy families and among Bengali, Pakistani and Indian Muslim young boys and girls of family emigrated abroad.
The 50-year-old Indian preacher is banned from entering the UK and Canada, and Peace TV is banned in Malaysia. Zakir Naik has even a fatwa on his head for “sermons not conform to Islam and inspiring hatred through vicious reasoning.”
Source: BD News24