Netherlands: New Muslim broadcaster announced

Netherlands: New Muslim broadcaster announced

The Dutch Muslim Broadcasting Foundation (SMON) received the new broadcasting permit for Islam from the Dutch Media Authority (CvdM). The permit is valid from September 2010, for the next five years, CvdM announced on Thursday.

Commissioner Jan van Cuilenburg says that the CvdM made the choice after 'careful consideration'. Two other applicant, the SMO (Muslim Broadcasting Foundation) and VMO (Joint Muslim Broadcasting Foundation, were dropped. VMO doesn't have enough followers, and SMO posted itself as "unique in the Netherlands and - we suspect - European history', since countless Muslims organization from the four main denominations in Islam joined the initiative: the Alevites, Shiites, Sunnis and Ahmediyya. [SMO recognized the Ahmediyya, but is also suspected of being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood]

CvdM did not have enough trust in the administration model of the SMO and feared a repeat of the conflicts which weighed down on the Muslim broadcasters for years. And so the SVIZ (Foundation for Islamic Airtime), which administratively represented two Muslim broadcasters, lost its permit in October. SVIZ fell from internal battles, clientalism, alleged financial mismanagement and mutual lawsuits which were paid by state broadcasting funds. The current broadcasters - NMO and NIO - will continue under an interim administration until September 2010.

According to Van Cuilenburg the 'division between the applicants and the implementers' isn't regulated well by the SMO. Administrators who were linked to the SVIZ fiasco, also played a role at SMO. Van Cuilenburg: there was a reasonable chance that an unworkable situation would arise again.

Van Cuilenburg says that the diverse Islamic denominations are represented also in the chosen new broadcaster (SMON). He further thinks it's important that that broadcaster offers the most guarantees that 2nd and 3rd generation immigrations would also get a chance. They have less issues with ethnicity and religiosity.

For example, Mohammed Cheppih is involved in SMON. He had originally applied on his own, but has since linked up with the new license-holder. Cheppih is the spiritual father of the Polder Mosque in Slotervaart (Amsterdam), who is aimed at an ethnically and religiously mixed Muslim public.

Source: Volkskrant (Dutch)