A Saudi-owned news channel has been fined £120,000 by Ofcom for broadcasting “confessions” by an imprisoned Bahraini opposition leader without making clear he had been tortured.
The interview with Hassan Mushaima was broadcast on Al Arabiya News, an Arabic language channel which is considered a rival to Qatar’s Al Jazeera. The size of the fine reflects the severity of the offence.
The network was found to have breached two rules of the broadcasting code covering unfair treatment of individuals and infringement of privacy.
The penalty comes just days after a Times investigation revealed that nearly half of all breaches of broadcasting standards identified by Ofcom are committed by religious or ethnic minority stations.
The Al Arabiya News broadcast reported on an uprising in Bahrain in early 2011, in which Mr Mushaima was involved. It was crushed with help from Saudi forces.
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It included an interview with Mr Mushaima, filmed while he was in prison awaiting a retrial. In it he described events leading to his arrest and conviction and he made confessions about his involvement in the uprising.
Three months before the date on which Al Arabiya News said the footage was filmed, an official Bahraini commission of inquiry had found that similar confessions had been obtained from people, including Mr Mushaima, under torture.
During his subsequent retrial and appeal, he maintained that his conviction should be overturned, as confessions had been obtained from him under torture.
Ofcom said: “We were particularly concerned with the circumstances in which the complainant was filmed, the potential impact the broadcast would have had on viewers’ opinions of Mr Mushaima, and the lack of steps taken by the broadcaster to secure Mr Mushaima’s informed consent and to verify the accuracy and fairness of the footage included in the broadcast programme.”
The media regulator said the breach was particularly serious because the opposition leader was “filmed in a private room within the prison in which he was being detained, making highly sensitive confessions which went to the heart of his forthcoming retrial and appeal.”
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It added that public interest did not warrant the broadcast of the material.
Ofcom regularly finds broadcasters in breach of its code but only imposes financial penalties for the gravest offences. In 2016 it fined a network aimed at the Afghan community in the UK for airing a clip produced by an Islamic terrorist before he launched an attack on train passengers in Germany.
Al Arabiya News must pay its fine to HM Paymaster General. It must also broadcast a statement of Ofcom’s findings and refrain from airing the interview again.
Mr Mushaima’s conviction in relation to the 2011 uprising was confirmed by Bahrain’s highest court in 2013 and he remains in prison.