The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Apr 19 announced its plan to establish a satellite channel and promote investment in the media to fight Islamophobia and enhance exchange of information among the member states. “We have a number of important proposals to strengthen Islamic media activities. They include the launch of an OIC satellite channel,” OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told a conference of information ministers from the Islamic world.
The OIC chief also called on Muslim businessmen and women to finance the new channel as well as to invest in major media organisations that are already successfully making substantial profits in order to “exchange information and news of the Islamic world and project the true picture of Islam.”
Ihsanoglu also announced a three-year media plan focusing on the African continent.
Riyad bin Kamal Najm, Saudi Arabia’s deputy information minister for media affairs, backed the new proposals to strengthen the Islamic media including the OIC channel. He said Saudi Arabia is ready to host the first forum for broadcasting regulators in Jeddah in June. The OIC, which is the second largest international organisation after the UN, has set out a strategy to combat what it calls “rising intolerance against Islam and Muslims in the West.”