Fury as C4 refuses to axe drama glorifying IS days after van attack
CHANNEL 4 faced furious criticism after it decided to press ahead with screening a controversial drama about Islamic State last night, just days after the Barcelona terror attack.
Families had called on the broadcaster to postpone the series as a mark of respect for victims after the terror group claimed responsibility for the atrocity in Spain.
Sources at Channel 4 said there were urgent discussions about whether the drama should be pulled from the schedule after a jihadi cell killed 14 people in two attacks in Spain and a knifeman stabbed two women to death in Turku, the first terrorist attack in Finland’s history.
But the first episode of the drama, The State, went out last night amid ongoing fears it risked glorifying the violence of the murderous group and could even act as a recruiting tool.
The harrowing drama is based on interviews with IS recruits who travelled to Syria to join the terror group and features scenes of beheadings, bombings, rape and public floggings.
Bethany Haines, 20, whose British aid worker father David was murdered by IS executioner Jihadi John, was among those who had called for it to be postponed out of respect for the families of those killed and injured in Spain.
She said: ‘The last thing those families need is a drama about Islamic State on TV at the same time their lives have effectively been torn apart by that same group.’
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of UK forces and a security expert, added: ‘There are already too many people going to fight for IS. We have to be concerned that a programme like this will encourage more to do so.’
The production team even considered using IS’s own footage of the brutal beheadings of Western hostages, broadcast on the internet in its sick propaganda films.
That was ruled out as insensitive to the victims’ families – but was replaced by dramatised versions of the murders, recreated in chilling detail, although the act of execution is not shown.
The State follows four young recruits who abandon their lives in Britain to travel to join IS in the Syrian city of Raqqa in 2015.
Said to be one of the most violent dramas ever broadcast in Britain, it depicts how the two men and two women commit to life inside the selfproclaimed caliphate.
One of the main characters, British doctor Shakira, gives a speech extolling the virtues of jihad, saying: ‘It’s dedication, it’s honesty, it’s selflessness, it’s compassion, it’s perseverance, it’s battle.’
Ultimately, her character becomes disillusioned with life under Islamic State during the four-part series, which continues tonight.
Director Peter Kosminsky, who won a Bafta for his dramatisation of the Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall, said it was intended as ‘a cautionary tale’ about the horrors of the reality of life inside IS.
But he said it also reflected the accounts of former IS fighters, who described a spirit of camaraderie and being welcomed as heroes and provided with money, weapons and jihadi brides.
He acknowledged that he risked accusations of being ‘an apologist’ for IS, which he condemned as ‘a violent death cult’. In publicity interviews before the attacks in Spain and Finland, Mr Kosminsky said the ongoing wave of attacks in European cities including London and Manchester had given the drama ‘a certain ferocious additional relevance’.
He said it was important to understand that many IS recruits were from ordinary backgrounds and that he had tried to ‘humanise’ the individual characters.
Miss Haines, whose father was murdered in 2014, had called for the broadcast to be postponed for at least two weeks after the latest
‘The last thing the families need’
attacks. Her call for a delay was supported by Conservative MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadhim Zahawi, and by Labour’s Keith Vaz, who said: ‘We should take care not to give the oxygen of publicity to terrorists who use it to advance their sickening cause.’
Channel 4 said: ‘Peter Kosminsky’s drama is based on extensive factual research and offers an unflinching insight into the horrific actions of IS which we believe is an important subject to confront and explore.’