5 Pillars UK has parted ways with Impress

CST welcomes the announcement that the Islamist website 5 Pillars UK has parted ways with the media regulator Impress following successful complaints made by CST about antisemitic and homophobic material they had published.

This included two interviews where British far right leaders were given an unchallenged platform by 5 Pillars UK to air their antisemitic views.

By leaving the regulator after several rulings against them for publishing antisemitism and homophobia, 5 Pillars UK appears to have decided that publishing such content is more important to them than adhering to professional standards of journalism. CST has always felt that 5 Pillars UK was using Impress’s name to give a veneer of mainstream respectability to their extremist content. Their decision to leave Impress, following rulings against their interviews with leaders of the British far right, suggests that this suspicion was correct.

5 Pillars UK cite three cases where the regulator ruled against them for promoting hatred. Two of these are the result of complaints made by CST. The first was a video made by Deputy Editor Dilly Hussain regarding homosexuality and the second and most recent was an interview with far right leader Jayda Fransen making explicitly antisemitic comments.

The final adjudication on CST’s complaint to Impress relating to their interview with Fransen offers an insight into what 5 Pillars UK is comfortable publishing:

“The interviewee’s unchallenged assertions that Jews were responsible for Pornhub, for ‘the abortion industry’ and for ‘the LGBTQPZ plus agenda’, and that there was a ‘disproportionate number of Jews occupying positions of authority’, had the effect of perpetuating a narrative of prejudice against Jewish people. Rejecting the Publisher’s claim that providing more challenge to the interviewee would have made the podcast too long, the Committee recognised that the Publisher had full editorial control over the scope, content and duration of the item and had an obligation to ensure that, whatever its length, it complied with the Code. Overall, the Committee considered that the lack of challenge by the interviewer to the claims enabled the interviewee to encourage hatred or abuse of Jews.”

CST will continue to monitor and pursue action against 5 Pillars UK and other extremist groups and actors as part of our work protecting the Jewish community and wider society from anti-Jewish hatred and extremism.