Islamic TV banned in Britain for condoning marital rape

LONDON - Britain’s television watchdog has censured a Muslim religious channel accusing its presenters of condoning marital rape and calling women who visit mosques wearing perfume as “prostitutes”.

The Islam Channel, which broadcasts on Sky, breached the broadcasting code in five programmes between May 2008 and October 2009, the tv monitoring body Ofcom said, according to the Daily Mail.

In one programme, the host told viewers that it was “not strange” and “not such a big problem” for a man to force his wife to have sex.

A phone-in show in May 2008, in which a female caller asked if she had the right to hit a violent husband back, was deemed in breach of the code.

The presenter said: “In Islam we have no right to hit the woman in a way that damages her eye or damages her tooth or damages her face or makes her ugly. Maximum what you can do, you can see the pen over here, in my hand, this kind of stick can be used just to make her feel that you are not happy with her.”

Ofcom said it considered the presenter was clear some form of physical punishment was acceptable.

A discussion programme in April 2009 on sexual relations within marriage was found to have breached guidelines, as was a programme in October 2009 in which it was said women who wore perfume outside the home could be declared “a prostitute”.

The Islam Channel said it “does not condone or encourage violence towards women under any circumstances” and “does not condone or encourage marital rape”.

Ofcom previously imposed a statutory sanction on the channel in 2007 for various breaches. The channel, launched six years ago, has been accused in the past of airing extreme views.