Summarizing 5Pillars’ position, the watchdog said it “interviewed her because of her relevance to British Muslims and because it believes in engaging with and challenging those it disagrees with, which it says is important in a democracy that values ​​freedom of expression.” .

The supervisory authority’s decision follows another verdict in May this year which saw Impress order 5Pillars to change or remove a Blood Brothers episode it said encouraged “hate and abuse” against Jews and LGBT people.

In that case, the interviewee had been Mark Collett, leader of a far-right group and who Impress said had also been met with “inadequate challenge from the interviewer”.

In June, following that ruling, 5Pillars Impress announced it was leaving its regulatory framework.

Impress still carried out its investigation and sentenced — the next day 5Pillars formally announced their departure — that the site should remove or change the interview. The episode, titled “Britain First, Christian nationalism, and the Zionist agenda”, remains online at the time of writing.

5Pillar’s editor envisions the emergence of an Islamic press regulator

Impress is one of two British press regulators. Impress, which was designed according to principles set out by the Leveson Inquiry, primarily oversees newer, digitally native outlets such as Novara Media, Journo Resources, Desmog and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as some print titles such as Prospect magazine.

The other regulator, IPSO, covers most national and regional newspapers and magazines. A handful of national titles – The Guardian and Observer, The Independent and the Financial Times – have chosen to self-regulate.

5Pillars editor Roshan Muhammed Salih announced his resignation, saying the title was leaving Impress because “we don’t want non-Muslims who don’t share our values ​​to have editorial control over our content”.

The publisher signed up in the first place, he wrote, “because we wanted our readers and viewers to know that we were serious about following professional editorial guidelines”.

But it was rapped by Impress in 2021 over a social media post that described gay sex as a “crime against God”, after which “complaints about 5 Pillars continued to come in, particularly from our detractors in the pro-Israel and pro-LGBT lobby …

“It became obvious to us that our enemies were trying to use Impress to smear us with many complaints.”

He wrote that 5Pillars would continue to adhere to “most of the professional guidelines set out in the Impress Standards Code”.

Salih said he hoped to eventually see “the emergence of an external regulator – but a Muslim one who will judge us according to the Qur’an and the Sunnah…

“An independent Muslim media regulator – which 5Pillars and other Muslim media could join – would send a strong signal to society (as well as non-Muslims) that Muslims take journalism seriously.”

In response to 5Pillars’ departure, Impress said: “We are of course disappointed that 5Pillars came to the decision to leave Impress earlier this year.

“It is our strong belief that it is better for both publishers and the public that recognized independent regulation is taken up as widely as possible to preserve journalistic integrity across the sector.

“Unfortunately, until there are genuine incentives from government and industry to make that happen, publications will continue to be free to do as they please, including discriminating against protected groups without recourse or consequence.”

(Read more: IPSO v Impress — Ten years after Leveson, how are the press ‘watchdogs’?)

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