OTTAWA – A Canadian broadcast of an American talk radio program was not abusive toward Muslims, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says.
On Sept. 3, 2006, during the episode of Coast to Coast AM, host Art Bell read from an essay written by a retired U.S. major general who said that Americans don’t understand the situation in the Middle East—that it was a real threat to Americans’ freedoms. The essay included comments about Muslim radicals and terrorists, but also said that peaceful Muslims do not speak out for fear of reprisal.
The show, which is syndicated on several Canadian radio stations, usually deals with conspiracy theories and the paranormal but occasionally touches on current events. The complaint was lodged by a listener who heard the episode on AM 640 in Toronto.
The listener’s letter said the show “was tantamount to a diatribe directed against all Muslims delivered … in a manner intended to incite hate and kindle racism towards the entire Muslim community.” The station responded that the essay’s criticism was directed only at terrorists.
The CBSC panel examined the comments against the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics, the self-regulatory code that prohibits private broadcasters from airing programming containing “abusive or unduly discriminatory material or comment which is based on matters of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion”, and other grounds.
The majority of the panel concluded that the episode did not violate the Code. “The broadcast text does distinguish between Muslim terrorists and peaceful Muslims. Terms such as ‘terror group’ (referring to Al-Qaeda), ‘Islamic militant’, ‘Muslim terrorists’, ‘terrorists’, and ‘radical Muslims’ were applied to the former throughout the monologue.” Criticism of certain groups on the basis of their criminal activities is allowed. “The Panel finds no inherent problem in such a choice,” its decision stated.
One panel member dissented, saying “I would find the broadcaster in violation of Clause 2 of the CAB Code of Ethics” because not enough distinction was made between terrorists and peaceful Muslims. “[I]t is my view that all Muslims would suffer in the minds of listeners on the basis of the host’s descriptions,” she wrote.
