The police and the likes of the BBC are usually very quick to claim that Islam has nothing to do with the various attacks and planned attacks that Muslims have or have tried to put into operation.
They quickly move in to play down such associations in the interests of community cohesion.
How different when a Muslim is killed.
When a Saudi Arabian national, Nahid Almanea, was stabbed to death in Colchester the police couldn’t wait before suggesting that it may have been a religious crime…though paradoxically saying they had absolutely no evidence this was the case.
The Media, including the BBC, put that claim into their headlines:
Colchester murder: Religious hate crime a line of inquiry
Why do the police not list all the other ‘lines of inquiry’ that it has in mind:
Officers said there was no evidence of it being a religious hate crime but it was “one of the main lines” of inquiry.
Why highlight the Islam angle knowing full well the Media will not just report it but go to town on it? Could it have been a deliberate policy exploiting the Press’s eagerness for scandal and outrage in order to get a certain message out? Guess the Press haven’t learnt from Hillsborough.
The Daily Mail was just as bad as the BBC, but is out to sell papers whilst the BBC should be standing back from the fray with a more considered approach. Ironically the Mail also printed this story on the same page:
‘I call upon any brother to take up a knife and kill as they did #colchester’: British ISIS fighter who threatens to come back to UK urges British Muslims to avenge murder of Saudi woman in Essex
So what we now have is a ‘God given gift’ to the Jihadis, courtesy of Essex police, the BBC and the Daily Mail et al, that is perfect for whipping up the frenzied faithful.
Perhaps that’s why Essex police are rowing back on that claim of an islamophobic attack:
Essex Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh and the county’s police and crime commissioner, Nick Alston, said in a joint statement that it is not yet known if Ms Almanea’s Muslim dress prompted her murder.
They warned against jumping to conclusions, saying this would be “deeply unhelpful, wrong and dangerous”.
Bit late now.
The Mail at least mentioned the similar death of James Attfield in Colchester in March from multiple stab wounds, his killer not being found yet.
The BBC didn’t mention that link at all in its first reports despite having an appeal on Crimewatch about the murder:
James Attfield murder
No one knows who or why either victim was killed but it seems that some sectors of the Establishment are all too ready to make claims of Islamophobia regardless of the facts, or lack of them…just as the BBC were all too ready to accept the exaggerated claims of ‘Tell MAMA’ without doing any fact checking themselves.
This is a perfect example of the BBC’s and other’s willingness to use any event related to Islam to either promote Islam or silence its critics.
By labelling this attack islamophobic they don’t actually care whether that is true or not but are intent on generating a perception that Muslims are under attack, it is Islamophobia, and it is an Islamophobia generated more often than not by ‘hostile’ press coverage of Muslim affairs….hoping of course to either silence or at least make editors more reluctant of being critical of Islam, and to encourage the police to take a more hardline approach against anyone who criticises Islam, and eventually to persuade politicians to legislate ever more rigorously to deal with these so called hate crimes in the Press, on blogs or social media…or even Christian preachers on street corners.
The police are now looking at other lines of inquiry…including someone who allegedly attacked a jogger in the park…
Police question 19-year-old man over Muslim student’s murder
An attempted assault on a jogger close to the scene of Nahid Almanea’s murder results in the arrest of 19-year-old suspect who is now being questioned over her murder