I just picked this story up via Not a Sheep. Spotted it in our sidebar.
The BBC takes an interest in domestic violence; it’s the kind of story that’s often featured in the Victoria Derbyshire show. Maybe it already has been.
The BBC chose to focus its report on a domestic abuse charity’s criticism of the leniency of the sentence. (18 months’ suspended) The charity said that the judge’s comments showed “Shocking ignorance”.
The BBC’s report describes the violence in some detail, but omits certain odious remarks Mustafa Bashir had made to his wife. According to the Express he berated her for wearing western-style clothing, called her a slag and her friends “English slags”.
I presume the BBC felt it was preemptively heading off a potential Islamophobic backlash, in the name of social cohesion.
However, it emerges that the judge’s principal reason for dishing out such a lenient sentence doesn’t apply. Mr Bashir lied. The cricket club that had supposedly offered him a professional contract has ‘never even ‘eard of him’.
On the same theme, just heard a report by Hugh Sykes on Radio 4's PM regarding abuse of child servants in Pakistan. He managed to go the whole report without mentioning Islam or Sharia, even though (the Islamic Republic of) Pakistan's legal system (ie Sharia)was very much the focus of the report. Also he failed to explain the Islamic idea of libel (i.e. you can libel someone even if you tell the truth about them) - again, another issue central to the report.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC will do anything to ensure its audience remain in the dark about Islam.
Today took an interest, on Facebook at least.
ReplyDeleteBut then the legs thing distracted them. For balance, I presume.
Apparently the point of the stories (the BBC has done another one about MPs criticizing the judgment, with the same facts omitted) is that the judge didn't give a harsher sentence because he saw the victim as being less vulnerable than other women. Also because a stricter sentence would have cost him a cricket contract. That's a pathetic decision, really. I mean, surely this was attempted murder.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, that background info about what Bashir said while trying to pour bleach down his wife's throat is not relevant to this particular story of the judge's awful judgment.
News Sniffer shows that the Islamic reasons behind the abuse were not in any versions of either report. Assuming that it captured the first of either, of course.
This little bear thinks it is the crime that should determine the punishment, not the 'vulnerability' of the victim, (what do intelligence, circle of friends etc. matter when one is being whacked with a bat or poisoned?), or, for that matter, the career prospects of the criminal.
ReplyDeleteExactly. What the judge did and said is appalling. No wonder the police are so demoralized.
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