Holocaust broadcast row settled
Radio station and Jewish board bury the hatchet 16 years after ‘offensive’ show
AN Islamic broadcaster and a Jewish organisation have agreed to lay to rest a 16-year legal wrangle.
Until two weeks ago, Cape Town’s Radio 786 and the South African Jewish Board of Deputies had been in dispute because of a May 1998 broadcast.
In the show, Yakub Zaki, a Scottish historian and author, disputed the generally accepted history of the Holocaust, among other things.
Confirming the resolution of the matter this week, Independent Communications Authority of South Africa spokesman Paseka Maleka said Zaki “asserted that Jewish people were not gassed in the concentration camps during World War 2 but died of infectious diseases, particularly typhus, and that only a million Jews died, not six million”.
Zaki also commented on the “the historical, social and economic factors” that drove the founding of Israel, he said.
In June 1998, the board filed a complaint with the then Independent Broadcasting Authority saying the comments were offensive to the Jewish community and amounted to hate speech.
Radio 786 distanced itself from Zaki’s comments and “consistently argued that it could not be held liable for the views of guests”, according to its spokesman, Ali Chicktay.
Thus began a matter that went to various high courts and the Constitutional Court over the years.
The parties finally agreed that the matter must be heard by the predecessor of the broadcasting monitoring and complaints committee, the complaints and compliance committee.
In a joint statement on March 31, the board and Radio 786 said they had “agreed to close this chapter in the spirit of ubuntu”.
Radio 786 stood by its argument that the broadcast did not amount to hate speech, although “some of Dr Zaki’s comments may have been viewed as anti-Semitic and hurtful”. It recognised that “the broadcast caused offence and distress to the members of the Jewish community”.
The board recognised that “there was no intention of Radio 786 to cause any such offence or distress.” Spokesman David Saks said his organisation had withdrawn its complaint after the settlement.
“Part of the settlement was that if Radio 786 acknowledged that the programme was in parts anti-Semitic and hurtful to the Jewish community, then the board would withdraw its complaint,” he said.