Anjem Choudary and other radical Muslim clerics should not be banned from television appearances, according to an independent reviewer of terror legislation.
David Anderson QC said today that broadcasters should have the power to decide whether extremists like Choudary appear on their channels.
Choudary, who had met Woolwich murder suspect Michael Adebolajo, appeared on Newsnight the day after the brutal death of soldier Lee Rigby last week.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, Mr Anderson said: “Perhaps I’m old fashioned, I’m a great believer in the marketplace of ideas, the good ideas drive out the bad.
“It’s important to give these people a hard time and to expose to the audience the sort of things they have been saying when they have not been wearing a tie in the television studio.
“But subject to that, let them be heard, and the risk of not letting these people be heard in all their glory is that you sanitise them, and that people don’t actually realise how extreme they are.”
The BBC and Channel 4 were criticised for giving Choudary time on air soon after the death of Drummer Rigby.
During his appearance on Newsnight Choudary was repeatedly asked whether he found the video taken shortly after the death of Drummer Rigby ‘horrific’.
However, Choudary refused to say whether he was horrified or abhorred the crime and instead said he found the scenes ‘shocking’.
Mr Anderson said it was important people like Choudary were allowed to speak in order to severely test their comments.
He said: “If you’re talking about Anjem Choudary, various organisations that he has been instrumental in founding have indeed been banned as organisations that promote or encourage terrorism.
“It hasn’t happened to him, he hasn’t been prosecuted on that basis.
“For someone who is a member of society, free to speak, I think one has got to allow him to speak, one has got to test very severely what he has to say, and one has to discredit his ideas.
“One can think about the high-profile extremists in respect of whom that’s been a pretty effective process.”
It has been reported that extremist preachers could be banned from television under new powers for Ofcom.