Daughter of beheaded Scot: Delay TV jihadi drama out of respect for victims
CHANNEL 4 was facing calls last night to postpone a controversial drama about Islamic State after the daughter of one of Jihadi John’s victims said it should be delayed in the wake of the Barcelona atrocity.
Bethany Haines, 20, whose father David was murdered by the IS executioner, said TV executives should postpone the screening of The State for at least a fortnight. The first episode is due to be broadcast tonight with the following three episodes on subsequent evenings.
Mr Haines, 44, was a Scots former RAF engineer who was in Syria helping civil war victims.
Writing exclusively for The Mail on Sunday, Miss Haines, of Perthshire, says the decision should be made ‘out of respect and humanity for the families suffering in the wake of the Barcelona atrocity’.
She writes: ‘The violence in the drama would be upsetting to anyone. But I think it would be particularly horrifying for those affected by the events of the last few days. So, I would like to say to Channel 4’s executives: Put yourselves in that situation.’
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative MP for North East Somerset, urged the station’s bosses to ‘listen sympathetically’ to Miss Haines’s request. He said: ‘Without having seen the programme, I don’t want to say whether they are right or wrong in broadcasting it now, but they should be sympathetic.’
The State, by director Peter Kosminsky, who was behind awardwinning Tudor drama Wolf Hall, has been critically acclaimed.
Shot in southern Spain, it is said to be one of the most violent dramas ever broadcast in the UK and tells the story of four Britons – two men and two women – who travel to Syria to join IS in 2015, but become disillusioned with the terror group.
The main female character – called Shakira and played by actress Ony Uhiara – finds it impossible to work as a doctor inside the so-called caliphate, and tries to escape with her nine-year-old son.
A male character, Jalal (actor Sam Otto), grows disenchanted with the group’s barbaric violence against ordinary people, as well as its practice of sexual slavery. He makes the stark discovery that his older brother, whom he believed became a ‘martyr’ fighting for the caliphate, was beheaded by IS for trying to leave.
The drama is unrelenting in its depiction of the brutality of life under IS, showing severed heads on metal spikes, beheadings and even youngsters playing football with a severed head.
Viewers will also see dismembered
‘We should not give publicity to terrorists’
bodies of babies scattered in a hospital in the Syrian city of Raqqa after a bombing. One character, an IS executioner, appears to be based on Jihadi John, the 27-year-old Londoner whose real name was Mohammed Emwazi and who was killed in a US drone strike.
Director Kosminsky said he wanted to make a ‘cautionary tale’ about IS and not glamorise the terror group. He said: ‘As far as I know, there’s been no other depiction, certainly in drama, of what happens to young British Muslims when they arrive in Islamic State. That is something worth depicting.
‘This is supposed to be a cautionary tale. The main characters, their attitudes change, and I didn’t think it would act as any kind of cautionary tale if you couldn’t associate with the characters.’
Mr Haines was abducted in Syria in March 2013. In September 2014, aged 44, he appeared in a sickening IS murder video, kneeling in a Syrian desert in an orange jumpsuit, before being beheaded by Jihadi John. His family knew he had been kidnapped but kept quiet in order not to derail any rescue attempts.
Leicester East Labour MP Keith Vaz, the former Homes Affairs Committee chairman, agreed the drama should be delayed for a week or a fortnight.
He said: ‘This is not the time to broadcast. We should not give publicity to terrorists who use it to advance their sickening cause.’
Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said: ‘We are not asking for censorship, just a delay as a mark of respect.’
And Nadhim Zahawi, Tory MP for Stratford-on-Avon, added: ‘If Bethany Haines, whose father was clearly a victim of Daesh [IS], feels that way, I am sure other victims would feel the same. We should respect the views of victims.’ Last night, a spokesman for Channel 4 said: ‘We are planning to broadcast The State tonight in its scheduled slot. The drama is a fictional account of the brutalities of IS in Syria and does not recreate any terror incidents in Europe.
‘Peter Kosminsky’s drama is based on factual research and offers an insight into the horrific actions of IS which we believe is an important subject to explore.’