Malaysia, Turkey and Pakistan to jointly launch channel to counter Islamophobia

The governments of Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia will launch an English television channel to highlight the issues of Muslims and fight Islamophobia in the West, according to media reports.

The channel proposal was discussed at a meeting between Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan premier Imran Khan on the sidelines of the 74th United Nations General Assembly in New York last week.

"We felt that many reports about Islam and Muslims were inaccurate, and do not portray what Islam preaches. They label Muslims as terrorists for example, and the world accepts it as the truth when Islam is not a violent religion.

"We feel there must be an effort to explain what Islam is so that there is no confusion and it won't be accused of being a religion that promotes terrorism," Mahathir said.

He said the effort will be spearheaded by the information departments of the three countries without giving the possible date of the channel's launch.

Under the joint venture, web series and films will be produced to spread knowledge on Islamic history, the News International quoted Khan as saying.

"Our meeting in which we decided to set up a BBC-type English language TV Channel that, apart from highlighting Muslim issues, will also fight Islamophobia," Khan said in tweet.

"Mis-perceptions which bring people together against Muslims would be corrected; issue of blasphemy would be properly contextualised; series and films would be produced on Muslim history to educate/inform our own people and the world; Muslims would be given a dedicated media presence," Khan said.