HT and the mass media

Acknowledging media’s powerful role in agenda-setting, issue framing and awareness-raising, social movements—including extremist organizations—seek publicity and close contacts with journalists to facilitate dissemination of their messages to broader audiences.

However, given the media’s interests and journalistic and editorial choices, social movements have no control over how they are covered. Although negative representations in the press damage public perceptions and attitudes toward them, movements still attempt to garner media attention by public demonstrations and provocative rhetoric (Wiktorowicz 2005, 150-151). Highlighting their availability for interviews, leaders of extremist groups try “to position themselves as an essential source for journalists trying to gain insights into contemporary issues from an Islamic perspective” (Wiktorowicz 2005, 150). Wiktorowicz (2005, 150) quoted al-Muhajiroun leadership as relishing their public role, “Our coverage since September 11 has been international. We were in every single major media outlet in Britain, and in many European countries, and America, and in the Far East. People from China and Japan were coming down to have interviews. And our ideas were propagated worldwide.” There are also records of HT meeting with journalists in Europe and giving press conferences (Horton 2006; Maliach 2006b). Thus, although the overall coverage of such movements as al-Muhajiroun and HT is negative, parts of their ideologies and appeals get transmitted through legitimate media gatekeepers directly to millions of readers, viewers and listeners.

Why seek publicity if the coverage will damage the credibility of the movement and presumably not help win the souls and hearts of potential members? This, at first sight an irrational tactic, has its own logic. Muslims in Europe are aware of the tendency toward negative coverage of their faith in the press. For extremist movements, this distrust in Western media increases the likelihood that readers will “dismiss or overlook negative reporting about the movement as part of the overall trend of negative reporting about Islam in general” (Wiktorowicz 2005, 157). Husain’s account of media’s contribution to HT flourishing in Britain supported this argument. He wrote:

“Boosted by the intense media interest, we [HT] went from strength to strength. Nothing gave us greater motivation than to hear our ideas being amplified in the national media, reaching new audiences of millions. To us it did not matter whether the coverage was favourable or otherwise. We were resigned to biased reporting, but we knew that there was a crucial constituency of Muslims who would look upon us as their leaders, their spokesmen against the attacks of the infidels. It was this recognition we needed more than anything else. The British media provided us with it and more: Arab dictators were now increasingly worried about the rising profile

of a group they had banned four decades previously. Britain breathed new life into the Hizb”(Husain 2007, 103-4).

Later as Husain abandoned radical Islam advocated by HT and turned to moderate Islam. He stated that

“As I reconnected with my faith, all around me Islamists were emerging as a strong voice. Islamist groups organized conferences, the media gave them vast amounts of airtime, and they began to be seen as ‘mainstream’ Islam. I, a spiritually oriented, moderate, mainstream Muslim, like millions of others, had nothing to say. We did not advocate suicide bombings, challenge the governments of countries, threaten to hijack – why should we make the news?” (Husain 2007, 214).

I.1.5.1 Europe

HT attempts, however, to change the negative coverage and distorted images in the press. It does so via leaflets, press releases, Internet and through peaceful demonstrations in conflict zones like Palestine to attract peace activists and sympathetic media coverage. There have also been HT meetings with journalists and press conferences in Europe (Horton 2006;

Maliach 2006b). The Internet, however, appears to be the most viable means of communication used by HT in Europe, where Internet access is much easier than in Central Asian countries. Reportedly, at least seven HT websites facilitate the swift posting of timely information on political developments around the world that can be printed and disseminated among local populations. With the help of cyberspace, HT constructed a virtual Muslim community to reach members in repressive countries, as well as Muslims in countries where they feel inferior (Baran 2004, 29). For example, HT actively used the Internet as a channel for protest during the caricature crisis in Europe in 2006; the HT office in London posted its messages on websites and e-mailed registered users to urge them to take steps as a reaction to what HT considered an insult to all Muslims. This communication was non-violent and called for peaceful protests (Maliach 2006b).

As of this writing, there has been virtually no attempt to investigate empirically how HT was covered in the European media. In his analysis of coverage of al-Muhajiroun in British quality newspapers from 1997 to 2004, Wiktorowicz (2005) mentioned only that HT has been far less covered than al-Muhajiroun and received minimal coverage as a whole, despite the fact that HT issued 31 press releases between 19 December 2001, and 17 October 2003. In the graphical representation of distribution of reports on HT in the Sun, Guardian, Evening Standard and Financial Times, one can see that coverage of HT appeared in 2000, rose substantially at the end of 2001 remained high in 2002 and 2003 (with the highest number of report being at 20), and decreased in 2004.

I.1.5.2 Central Asia

Due to low Internet skills and access, as well as technical limitations, leaflets and books are the primary means of HT propaganda in Central Asia. Media reports indicate that HT started using computer clubs for youngsters in Kyrgyzstan to show propaganda on video. In 2006, Vecherniy Bishkek, the Kyrgyz daily quality newspaper, published an interview with an HT member who claimed that his group was ordered to work closely with the mass media.

As a Russian-speaking Kyrgyz, he was responsible for Russian-language newspapers; his friend visited Kyrgyz language newspapers and TV studios, and Uzbek members were to strengthen contacts with Uzbek journalists. According to the report, the first aim of these HT representatives was not to allow the press to make HT a scapegoat for all wrongs and to prevent use of the HT name to instigate clashes among people (Urumbaev 2007).

Before 2002, HT received little or no coverage in the Central Asian media.

Grebenschikov, a Kyrgyz independent journalist, reported, “Newspapers and television channels have no balanced approach to the forbidden movement. The media persistently repeat the cliché that Hizb-ut-Tahrir’s members are terrorists and extremists who wish to destroy the existing regime and establish and Islamic state in Central Asia, and this is all the authorities want to talk about” (Grebenschikov 2002). In her findings related to coverage of HT in the Uzbek media, an Uzbek journalist reported, “…there are no reports whatever about the activities of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir radical Islamic party; no accounts of the party’s members brought to trial; nor accounts about protests staged in Ferghana province by wives and mothers of those arrested for links with informal religious organizations” (Tokhtakhojayeva 2002). A Tajik journalist reported that any information related to HT in the Tajik press is published under the heading “Crimes” and with reference only to the law enforcement press service. As a rule, there is no mention of the party’s religious doctrine but only its aim to create a caliphate (Mansurova 2002).

There have been several attempts to investigate quantitatively how HT was covered in the Kyrgyz media. Wolf (2006) analysed 215 articles published in the Kyrgyz daily Vecherniy Bishkek from 2001 to 2005 containing the HT name at least once. She found that 22.8% of articles were short news stories about arrests of HT members or sympathizers, 50.7% were informative articles containing background information, and 26.5% were mainly irrelevant to the organization although its name was often used in a ‘terrorism’ context or simply to draw readers’ attention. The tone of coverage of HT was neutral in 9.3% of the articles, negative in 22.3% and very negative in 68.4%. Wolf (2006) attributed the fact that coverage become more neutral over the years – in a statistically significant relationship – to

changes in the Kyrgyz government and VB directorship in 2005 rather than merely to changes in the content of the articles. Her interviews with four journalists who wrote almost half those articles confirmed previous findings on self-censorship practises of Central Asian journalists and found that the religious views of the journalists played a crucial role how they covered HT’s conflict with mainstream society in general and the incumbent government in particular.

Analysis of coverage of extremism and terrorism issues in 22 Kyrgyz media, including TV channels, newspapers and Internet news agencies between 1 October and 30 November 2007 found that of a total of 209 relevant reports, 150 were ‘news’, 37 ‘eyewitness reports’, eight ‘analysis’, seven ‘articles’ and seven ‘interviews’; 10 were ‘positive’, 38 ‘negative’ and 161 ‘neutral’. Although “most of the reports were about cases of arresting distributors of Hizb ut-Tahrir leaflets, confiscating leaflets and arresting members of this party”, it was found that ‘positive reports’ were also mainly about HT rather than about other regional extremist organizations (International Media Support et al. 2008a, 69).

The fact that Central Asian journalists avoid writing about HT can be explained as due to the intimidating and repressive attitudes of governments and partially by lack of knowledge about the organization (Sukhov cited in Grebenschikov 2002; Loersch 2002). In this regard, Grebenschikov (2002) asserted that some journalists sympathized with HT members as he wrote, “They [HT members] behave with sincerity, which always positively influences journalists. A correspondent will doubt that these people are as dangerous as the authorities assert.” However, journalistic sympathies were never reflected in the media reports (Wolf 2006). In this regard, Public Association “Journalist” (2008a, 65) highlighted the following as among the problems: lack of knowledge about extremism and terrorism on the part of journalists; no clear policy for mass media and government interaction in coverage and prevention of extremism and terrorism; lack of financial resources to educate journalists; and restrictions in obtaining information from original sources.

In her final recommendations on how to combat religious extremism in Central Asia, Baran (2004a) emphasized the crucial role of media. Not only should there be “…free and reliable media sources to which people can turn to receive objective information…all available media resources need to be used to disseminate positive values of Islam and to increase basic levels of religious understanding” (Baran 2004, 137-138). Whether the need

‘to disseminate positive values of Islam’ is urgent in Central Asian media alone or in Western European media as well is yet to be addressed. Now I proceed to define HT from perspectives of social sciences that would provide further impetus to understanding HT in general and its coverage in different media settings in particular.