Representatives of a Muslim leadership group shunned for long periods by both Conservative and Labour governments were invited to speak on a BBC panel last week to mark Islamophobia Awareness Month.
The event, featuring Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) Secretary General Zara Mohammed and the group’s spokesperson, Miqdaad Versi, was organised by the head of diversity and inclusion at the BBC, Kevin Yusuf Coleman.
Coleman posted that he was “in awe of our amazing panel” present at the BBC Studios in London’s Television Centre.
Mohammed Kozbar, who is the deputy secretary-general of the MCB – but did not attend the BBC event – once hailed the founder of Hamas as a “master of the martyrs of resistance”.
Labour and Tory governments have largely maintained a “non-engagement” policy towards the MCB since 2009, when its then deputy secretary-general, Daud Abdullah, signed a declaration that the government interpreted as calling for attacks on British naval vessels and Jews around the world.
Sporadic contact between the MCB and government officials has taken place since despite the stance. For example, then-paymaster general Penny Mordaunt met Mohammed on her inauguration as MCB chief in 2021.
The MCB claims to be the UK’s “national representative Muslim body”.
Coleman said Mohammed and Versi provided “stimulating views and conversations” alongside the BBC’s religion editor Aleem Maqbool and journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.
The MCB was listed as a “supporting partner” at the Global Peace and Unity (GPU) festival at London’s Excel Centre in October, which was set to feature speakers who had backed Hamas, including a singer whose songs state “all the Jews will pay” and “we throw stones, small and big, at the Jewish demons”.
Kozbar, currently the MCB’s deputy secretary-general, visited the grave of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2015. At the time, Kozbar praised him as “the master of the martyrs of resistance, the mujahid [holy warrior] sheikh, the teacher”. He also met senior Hamas leaders.
A BBC Studios spokesperson said that the panel with MCB came from a “range of backgrounds” and provided a “wide selection of views”, and noted that an event on antisemitism was planned for the future.
“This was part of an internal series of after-work activities staff are invited to attend that take place all year round and reflect all faiths. Guest panellists are invited from a broad range of backgrounds to give a wide selection of views. A similar panel on antisemitism is planned for early 2025,” the BBC said.
When the JC broke the story about Kozbar’s praise for Yassin in February 2023, the MCB said that suggestions that he supported violence or antisemitism were “smears”. Kozbar also said at the time he was committed to working with “our Jewish friends” to fight both antisemitism and Islamophobia.
In 2009, then communities secretary Hazel Blears demanded that then-MCB head Dr Abdullah resign, and said the declaration “calls for violence against troops and Jewish communities”.
Dr Abdullah denied the claim, saying: “I do not advocate attacks on any religious community. Both I and the MCB have done everything possible to de-escalate the crisis.”
Speaking to the JC last week, a media spokesperson for the MCB indicated that the claims against the MCB, Kozbar and Abdullah were objectively false and misleading.