When Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby broke judo rules by refusing to shake the hand of Israeli judoka Or Sasson, the crowd understandably booed.
But why did Islam El Shehaby behave in the way that he did? According to BBC Sport, it's because "the Egyptian had come under pressure from some conservative voices in his homeland to withdraw from the bout".
Here the word "conservative" appears to be a cover for more appropriate words like 'hardline', 'Islamist', 'racist' or 'antisemitic'.
Moreover, by other accounts, Islam (living up to his name) is quite the 'conservative' himself, being regularly described as a "Salafi" or a "Salafi Muslim" - a point missing from the BBC article.
The Egyptian has now retired from judo. The Israeli went on to win an Olympic bronze.
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| Or Sasson and his Olympic medal |
******
Also - as BBC Watch has just noted - this same BBC article manages to spell Or Sasson's name wrong:
According to the BBC racial hate crime has risen 57% in the UK a shocking use of statistics I think you will agree.
ReplyDeleteIn a population of 65 odd million there were 2380 hate crimes reported (to a telephone hotline not convicted) last July vs 3326 this July.
At worst this represents a very very tiny minority of the population and also doesn't factor in minority on minority racial hate "crime".
These stats do not prove we are a nation of post Brexit racists, despite what the BBC is implying.
Also the 57% headline figure is the 4 days after the referendum. It's only 40% for the whole of July...... Pah I hate selective statistics.
ReplyDeleteThose stats are very dodgy. The BBC's online spin, from Jon Kelly....
Deletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36964916
...is careful to maintain a veneer of 'impartiality', by adding a few paragraphs of caution after an absolute mountain of insinuation.
And here's an example, from Jon Kelly, of how BBC reporters use Twitter as part of their BBC reporting:
Jon Kelly @mrjonkelly Jul 7
I'm looking to speak to victims of racist incidents from the past fortnight. If this is you, I'm very sorry to hear it. My DMs are open.
(Link: https://twitter.com/mrjonkelly/status/751070142512193536)
Seems, then, that this week's BBC Trustees' 'independent' report on the use of statistics - http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/stats_impartiality/report.pdf - has not yet penetrated their monumental efforts to project every element of Brexit as a disaster.
ReplyDeleteHello there Robin,
DeleteThanks for the link. We'll look into that.
I do take some small comfort in that the crowd booed. Had the spectators been Labour Party members or BBC employees they would, no doubt have cheered.
ReplyDelete