I read the Times's take, Lonely hearts jihadist couple guilty of bomb terror plot, before reading the BBC's, Derby terror plot: The online Casanova and his lover. The Times begins:
After reading that it and then moving onto the BBC News website, it surely must strike you that Dominic Casciani's BBC piece is deliberately avoiding using the word 'Muslim'. The word is conspicuous by its absence.
The Times mentions the name of the dating site where the terrorists met - SingleMuslim.com - not only once but twice. Dominic Casciani for the BBC, in contrast, despite writing a much longer piece, only refers to it as "a dating website", never naming it.
Incidentally, the news of their conviction is now nowhere to be seen among the 13 top news stories on the BBC's home page. ITV and Sky still have it among their main news stories.
I saw this story on the BBC News website earlier today. It wasn't there for long. As it has been removed, we should compare the exposure this story received with the recent National Action story - the latest 'Extra time to question National Action suspects' has been on the Local News part of the website for 3 days.
ReplyDeletewww.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-4257724
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42577248
These two stories in combination have kept the 'far-right' banned National Action on the website for 5 days.
I was going to comment on this piece. It seemed to me that the tone adopted in the BBC article was inappropriately light-hearted (references to "casanova" and "lothario") and the content deliberately misleading.
ReplyDeleteThe key points of this story are:
1. This guy entered our country illegally but was not prosecuted for that offence. He was helped by a people smuggling network. The BBC shows no interest in who runs that network.
2. Rather than being held in secure premises he was allowed to roam at will in the UK. Had he been kept somewhere secure there would have no risk to the innocent people of this country. The authorities took a risk with him.
3. He was connected to IS.
4. He was using false documentation to enable him to operate in the UK.
The BBC has chosen to deflect from these key points. They make the unwarranted assumption that his motivation in seeking entry to the UK was that he was "looking for a better life" rather than seeking to get to the UK to do us harm, which in the light of his subsequent behaviour is a more likely motivation.
His desire to marry four wives had nothing to do with being a "casanova" and everything to do with claiming his rights under Sharia law.
The BBC has chosen to deflect from these points. They call him a lone wolf even though he was in contact with IS. They disguise his Islamic motivation.
The BBC doesn't want you to see the truth. They want you to stick with their "narrative": all religions are of equal value; migration is good and necessary; asylum seekers deserve our sympathy and support; asylum seekers should not be kept under lock and key; all cultures are of equal value; and Muslims who become terrorists do so from personal inadequacy, mental ill health; socio-economic disadvantage or online grooming, not out of ideological conviction.