Thousands Call On Press Regulator To Hold Inquiry Into Racism In UK Media

17th September 2017 / United Kingdom

Almost five thousand people have emailed IPSO, the press regulator calling for an inquiry into racism in the UK media, in the wake of a column in the Sun which referred to ‘The Muslim Problem.’

The demand for an inquiry was originally made by the National Union of Journalists with Chris Frost, the NUJ ethics council chair saying that, “IPSO should launch an immediate investigation into the prevalence of Islamophobia, racism and hatred espoused in the press. IPSO claim to be set apart from their predecessor, the Press Complaints Commission, because they can run investigations and do monitoring – now is the time to prove it.”

Campaign group Global Justice Now has encouraged people to email IPSO , saying that “We support the National Union of Journalists in their call for Ipso to launch an immediate investigation into the prevalence of Islamophobia, racism and hatred espoused in the press.”

The email also calls for the Sun journalist Trevor Kavanagh who wrote the controversial column to stand down from the board of the press regulator, as it seems inappropriate that the subject of so many complaints should play an integral role in the regulatory body.

Kahra Wayland-Larty, a campaigner at Global Justice Now said:

“There seems to be a real sense of impunity in certain sections of the UK press, that they can print the most horrendous slurs and dehumanising stories about Muslims, migrants and refugees and get away with it. This serves to normalise racism, and put hate-filled content right into the mainstream, which is fuelling the hostile environment on the streets of the UK and subsequently resulting in the spike of often violent hate crimes we’re seeing against these communities. The press regulator can’t just sit idly by while much of the media descends into a frenzy of racist and Islamophobic hatemongering against whole sections of UK society.”

Jewish and Muslim groups in the UK also came together to issue a formal complaint to IPSO about the Sun column, which they likened to Nazi Propaganda.