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| A Rod Liddle joke, courtesy of The Sunday Times |
Today's The World This Weekend led with the Shamima Begum story. It featured an interview with her family lawyer, Mohammed Tasnime Akunjee.
Not that you'd know it after listening to that programme, but he's a controversial figure himself. He's been accused of (1) advising Muslims not to cooperate with anti-terror police, (2) endorsing the pro-jihadist group CAGE, (3) blaming the UK security services for “creating” one of Lee Rigby's killer and (4) saying it’s not extremism to call for death of British soldiers.
Meanwhile, the 'IS bride story' has been a lead story on the BBC since Wednesday. And, of course, on Sky too. And it all began with The Times.
Today, the unrepentant Islamic State woman has given birth and Sky has just tweeted a quote from correspondent John Sparks, who has just met her. He says, "She was strong, and stoic... she was remarkably composed." Comments could be going a lot better for John there, including such typical responses as these:
- Why on Earth are you giving that woman any airtime!
- What a hero! Such a strong woman! I can’t be the only one who feels this narrative is being pushed. They won’t stop until we welcome her with open arms.
- This is very worrying seeing these reports and numerous tweets/FB posts etc from Sky News. Why on earth are you basically campaigning to have this terrorist back in the U.K.?
And this short Twitter exchange sums up the conversation I've been having with friends and family over this:
Matthew: Let’s stop giving her publicity please. She is an ISIS supporter.
UK public policy failure: I know, everyone who I discuss this with cannot believe their ears. Five days the BBC have been pushing this now.
My guess is this endless clamour will only die down once the UK government has caved in and brought her over here.
