January 9, 2009 11:27

'Extremists' target radio station because they play Cliff Richard

Hackers take over Radio Basingstoke's website

A local radio station's website was hacked into by 'extremists' because they played a song by Cliff Richard, the station's owner claims.

Radio Basingstoke was swapped for a message warning "the west" that they should not insult Islam.

Owner of the station Astrid Haigh-Smith told The Daily Mail she believes it was because Cliff Richard is on their playlist.

Haigh-Smith said: "I just thought maybe it was because we had commented that we hoped our troops would be safe over Christmas. We’ve also played the Cliff Richard version of 'Hallelujah', but we would never dream of running down any religions."

The website was hacked into on Monday (January 5) and Wednesday (7) by extremists claiming to work on behalf of Ahmed Al-Qahtani, who is suspected to have been involved in the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001.

The hackers left a message saying: "Whoever thinks of insulting Islam or Muslims will suffer the same fate. We are the nightmare of western websites in the cyber war."

Haigh-Smith added: "I'm not going to change what songs we play. If we start doing things like that then the terrorists will have won."