Channel 4's 'brownface' controversy: Documentary causes storm after white woman goes undercover as Pakistani Muslim

Channel 4 is in the midst of a 'brownface' controversy over a programme where a white British woman darkened her skin to go undercover as a Muslim in Manchester's Pakistani community.

The documentary, to be aired next week, centres around Katie Freeman who agreed to spend a week inside the Muslim population just days after a terror attack on Manchester Arena killed 23 people and injured more than 250.

Katie Freeman said the experience of being abused just for walking down the street as a Muslim made her challenge her own prejudices. Channel 4

Freeman, 44, agreed to take part to question her own prejudices but got more than she anticipated as the bomb detonated just after the Channel 4 production team had made Katie up to look like a Pakistani Muslim. As she walked around Manchester in a hijab wearing a fake nose, teeth and darkened skin, she was heckled and abused with one man shouting at her from a pub 'f***ing Muslims in this town?'

The mum-of-two wept at the reaction: 'It makes me ashamed to live here. I was raging and fuming inside. But I also felt vulnerable. What harm was I doing?'

But the documentary has caused a storm and faces accusation of racism with one viewer saying, according to the Sun: 'Channel4 have totally missed the mark here.

'Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to put prosthetics on somebody to make them a caricature of people of a different race on primetime TV in 2017? Madness.'

Katie Freeman spent the week as part of a real Muslim family in Manchester Channel 4

Founder of equality group Faith Matter, Fiyaz Mughal, told the Daily Star: 'This is trying to drive ratings by racial stereotyping.

'Channel 4 needs to apologise.'

My Week As A Muslim airs on Monday October 23, 9pm, on Channel 4.

News
SNP 'conversion therapy' ban would be 'fundamentally illiberal'
SNP 'conversion therapy' ban would be 'fundamentally illiberal'

SNP support has dropped, but they are still the frontrunners for next month's elections.

Franklin Graham pushes back against Pope's war comments amid war of words with Trump
Franklin Graham pushes back against Pope's war comments amid war of words with Trump

Graham told Piers Morgan that while he did not want or support war, there was justification for it "when you're fighting evil".

Archbishop of Canterbury joins Pope in call for peace
Archbishop of Canterbury joins Pope in call for peace

The Pope has been outspoken against the latest war in the Middle East.

Church warden murder conviction quashed as Court of Appeal orders retrial
Church warden murder conviction quashed as Court of Appeal orders retrial

The Court of Appeal has overturned the murder conviction of Benjamin Field, the former church warden jailed in 2019 for the death of university lecturer Peter Farquhar, in a significant ruling that reopens one of the UK’s most complex criminal cases.