Hope Not Hate

[SayidSomal]

Co-Sign the Letter Here - thanks

 

Dear Ms Neesom

 

Last week Det Supt John Larkin, head of the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, claimed that the activities of the English Defence League were radicalising young Muslims and pushing them towards extremist organisations. It was a story that your own newspaper covered quite prominently on Saturday 20 November.

 

A few days earlier, a small group of Islamist extremists burnt poppies on a West London street. Across the road were a slightly larger number of English Defence League supporters, including their leader, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who was arrested for assaulting a police officer. On my HOPE not hate blog I wrote that these two groups were two sides of the same coin of hate. I said that they fed off each other and each needed the other to justify their own existence. Like Det Supt Larkin I argued that hatred breeds hatred.

 

We believe, however, that the media are partly responsible for feeding this hatred and none more so than the Daily Star. We have examined the past few years of your newspaper and found a depressing litany of negative articles about Muslims in Britain. Many of these articles over-exaggerate the importance of tiny Muslim extremist groups while ignoring more mainstream Muslim opinion and use the words of these extremists to smear an entire faith, while on other occasions inaccurate or slanted articles whip up fear and mistrust.

 

Freedom of speech is correctly the cornerstone of British society but with freedom comes responsibility and we fear that your reporting is actually encouraging a growth in Muslim extremism in this country.

 

We believe that the Daily Star regularly oversteps the boundaries of responsibility in reporting issues relating to Muslims and in doing so increases the mistrust and fear of people towards them. This helps to create a dangerous backlash among non-Muslims which in turn feeds groups such as the EDL and the British National Party. We then have the situation, as described by Det Supt John Larkin, where anti-Muslim activities increases support for Islamic extremist groups.

 

It is not our role to dictate what goes in your newspaper but we would urge you to take a more responsible and balanced approach. We believe that extremists such as Anjem Choudhary and Muslims Against Crusades are no more representative of the Muslim community than BNP leader Nick Griffin is of the white community. We would urge you to highlight more positive articles about the Muslim community that might increase understanding between communities and so reduce hatred and extremism rather than continually focus on negative stories.

 

I look forward to hearing back from you.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Nick Lowles

HOPE not hate

[Alpha Blondy]

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

[SayidSomal]

^^afka gacanta saar - when you yawn - haddii kale shaydan baad 'fellatio' siin uun.

[Nin-Yaaban]

Nin Waalan.

[SayidSomal]

maya waa Nin Yaaban

[N.O.R.F]

Good on him.