Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq makes her debut in news presenting next week as the first presenter of the BBC Asian Network’s hard-hitting new documentaries. The programmes will be broadcast on Mondays at 6.30pm within the Adil Ray programme.
The first of the Asian Network Reports – Love, ‘Honour’ and Obey on 4 September 2006 – will look at the horrifying instances of honour killing in the UK Asian community.
Every year in the UK, 13 young people are killed and thousands more are abused or intimidated in the name of family ‘honour’. It is thought that almost 200 such murder victims have met their death in this way over the last decade.
In the UK this crime is almost exclusively associated with the British Asian community. The programme will speak to families affected by such slayings and gauge opinions within the Asian community about the phenomenon. Konnie Huq will be one of several presenters to front the programmes.
They will cover challenging areas including the attitudes of Asians in the British Army and Asians in the porn business. Konnie Huq said: “Working on the Asian Network is a new direction for me. The subject material is really compelling and I’m looking forward to it.”
The documentaries will be produced by the Asian Network’s own news teams and, later in the series, a number of independent producers. There will be more than 20 programmes between September 2006 and March 2007.