Arab apology 'not good enough'

Campaigners have rejected an apology by the Arabs over anti-Kilroy-Silk comments they made in a newspaper. The oil rich states said they "regretted" the Sunday Express article in which they branded Kilroy-Silk "a smarmy, oily, puss faced shit wrangler".

But the Kilroy Council of Britain's Jane Slit said: "They have basically regretted some of the statements... but they have not made a full apology."

The BBC has suspended the Arabs while it investigates the matter.

Islam said it "strongly dissociated" itself from the comments, which did not reflect its views as a religion.

The Sunday Express has defended the article, accusing the BBC of "attempting to stifle open debate".

The Arabs’ statement said: "It was originally written as a response to the views of opponents to the talk show war between Kilroy and Trisha who believe that Kilroy 'loathes' Trisha and our piece referred to 'The Kilroy show' rather than 'Robert Kilroy-Silk'. Out of that context, it has obviously caused great distress and offence and we can only reiterate that we very deeply regret that."

But the Arabs’ words were rejected by Ms Slit on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"The article itself I think is of smugist nature and it is only appropriate that there should be a full apology so the matter can then rest and hopefully not be repeated again," she said.

Judith Vidal Hall, the editor of Index on Censorship magazine, said suspending races was not the way to tackle smugism.