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Peter Oborne: ‘a culture of untrue stories’
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TV lifts lid on hostility Muslims face
HIGHBURY journalist Peter Oborne was praised this week for speaking up for British Muslims who have suffered hatred and alienation since the London terrorist bombings.
Leading Muslims in Islington welcomed his hour-long Channel 4 documentary on Monday, which they said for the first time on TV dealt with the effect of the terrorist attacks on their community.
Noori Bibi, manager of Islington Young Voices Project, said: “The programme did show how the media can create a moral panic where an entire community is tarred with the same brush.
“I know young Muslim men who are fed up with the police continuing to stop and search them and women who have been spat on for wearing the head scarf.”
The programme, It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim, focused on the way insensitive remarks by politicians and inflammatory articles in some national tabloid newspapers may have encouraged Islamophobia.
Islington Labour councillor Mouna Hamitouche, Britain’s first Algerian councillor and a Muslim, said: “Fortunately, it is just a small minority of people who are hostile to Muslims.
“But this programme highlighted an often forgotten and ignored problem and for that it was very good.”
Mr Oborne said he was prompted to make the programme because “a culture of untrue stories in some national newspapers” started to get under his skin.
He added: “It was basically disinformation, exaggeration, distortion and fabrication in the British media. Insulting stories like Christmas is banned because of some Muslim event, which was clearly untrue.”
He added: “You couldn’t have said the same about blacks or Jews or gays, but for some reason it seems OK to target Muslims.” |
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