Sheffield Link FM radio station faces sanction over 'Jihadi' chant

Link FM's licensee, the Pakistan Muslim Centre, has "apologised wholeheartedly" for broadcasting the chant

A community radio station faces sanctions after broadcasting an Islamic chant said to contain "Jihadi lyrics" and "promoting terrorism".

Sheffield-based Link FM was found to have committed two serious breaches of Ofcom's broadcasting code by playing the "Nasheed" chant twice in 2020.

The chant contained material likely to "encourage or incite the commission of crime or lead to disorder", Ofcom said.

Licensee the Pakistan Muslim Centre said it "apologised wholeheartedly".

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In a report, Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, said Link FM had broadcast a chant called "Jundallah" or "Soldiers of Allah".

It said: "Although this Nasheed didn't contain any direct call to violent action, we consider cumulative effect of 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."

It added that the lyrics "sought to condone, promote and encourage violent Jihad as a legitimate expression of Islamic faith and glorify an ideology associated with Jihad, including martyrdom" and that such Nasheed chants "are used by terrorist groups to attract potential recruits".

'Quite embarrassed'

The Ofcom report said the Pakistan Muslim Centre had apologised for what it described as an "error" and an "unfortunate incident".

It said the presenter who broadcast the chant did not speak Arabic and the piece had not been vetted.

In a letter to Ofcom, the presenter apologised and said she felt "quite embarrassed" and had "no intentions of inciting hatred or negativity of any shape or form".

Concluding that Link FM was in breach of the broadcasting code, Ofcom said it was "minded to consider these breaches for the imposition of a statutory sanction".

Link FM is the second Sheffield-based community radio station to be found in breach of Ofcom's code in recent years.

In 2017, Imam FM was taken off air after it broadcast 25 hours of lectures by Anwar Al-Awlaki, a US-born radical Muslin cleric, killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

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