Source: AIM Magazine

http://www.asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/television/1386

On July 10, 2006 AIM Magazine reported, "It would be an understatement to say the Muslim Council of Britain and journalist Martin Bright are not exactly the best of friends. The latter, political editor of New Statesman magazine, will be presenting a documentary on Channel 4 next week arguing that the government is appeasing Muslim radicals in the UK and abroad, and failing to tackle extremism. He tells AIM magazine that the government is being very 'short-sighted' and failing to adequately represent the huge diversity of opinion within the British Muslim community. Martin Bright was himself the target of criticism last year when, as home affairs editor, he wrote a lengthy article in the Observer on the MCB's links to radical organisations in Pakistan. 'Far from representing the more progressive or spiritual traditions within Islam, the leadership of the Muslim Council of Britain and some of its affiliates sympathise with and have links to conservative Islamist movements in the Muslim world and in particular Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami, a radical party committed to the establishment of an Islamic state in Pakistan ruled by sharia law,' his report said. In reply the MCB said he was seeking 'to vilify' the organisation and accused him of 'unsubstantiated assertions'."