On October 6 in a TV-show “Details of the Week” broadcast at national TV-channel “Inter” a 10-minute plot was shown that was, on the opinion of its creators, to show the presence of “Islamic threat, radicalism and terrorism” in Crimea. We offer you the opinion voiced by Dr.Vyacheslav Shved, the Vice-President of the “Ukrainian Centre For Islamic Studies” NGO, on this issue.
A non-remarkable event, so-called International Forum and a Conference of Islaimc political party “Hizb-ut-Tahrir”, not registered within the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, became a pro forma case for launching the informational campaign. The event, in fact, didn’t even take place yet at the time of the broadcast — it found, however, its place in the Sunday show.
Appearantly the TV-channel shoult pay more attention to another event, much more important and remarkable for Crimean public, political and religious life, namely the V Crimean Tatars Kurultai where important decisions immediately effecting most Crimean tatars were made. This, however, didn’t meet the “Inter” ideological needs, as they repeatedly broadcast “horrors” on “Islamic threat”, “terrorism” and “radicalism”. The latest example of their work was justmainstreem, demonstrating how such things are done.
Thus, at the very beginning of the show on Crime the narrator announced a successful anti-terrorist operation by American forces in Libya, where the local “Al-Qaeda” leader had been arrested. Then the conversation suddenly turned to “the local Islamic radicals and their threats towards Ukrainian society”. Here “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” came in very handy, luckily they could develop the topic by telling about this organisation’s planned Forum.
The following material reminded much of a soup: some pictures of reports from the Party meetings, some “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” brochures, some filming from “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” Office in Beirut, Lebanon, some information on two homicides with a hint that it’s the “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” members who are responsible, though the narrator had to conform in the end that there were no evidence stating any Muslims were involved at all. Along came the information that about 100 of Ukrainian citizens are allegedly involved in Syrian war.
It’s surprising how they chose so called “experts”, too, as the activists of Russian Cossacks and their website “Novoross” were long-known for their specific views for what they called “a Muslim problem” — they view every Muslim through a foresight. It was irrational to expect qualified and rational approach for those issues from them.
Any logic was absent in the material as a whole, though it left the viewers unrest, alarmed and nervous — “My God, those extremists and terrorists are after us!.”
We have to admit, the bitter it is, that this TV-show is a part of a massive ideological and propaganda campaign against Ukraine that arose in the Media lately.
And all this happens at the very same time when the countdown until the Vilnius Ukraine-EU Summit, where the civilisational choice of Ukrainian nation is to be made, is on.They’re trying to sow discord within the Ukrainian society, destabilize it and thus make Political Association with the EU impossible. This attack’s facilitators will not fail to use anything including the above-mentioned horror-stories on the “Islamic threat and radicalism.”
“Inter” Channel, unfortunately, is involved in this campaign by no means protecting the interests of Ukrainian nation far too often. I’d like to believe that in the end the channel will start presenting expert and professional digest on Ukrainian Muslims’ real life, problems, cares and expectations, as well as their input to developing the State of Ukraine.
