Business as usual

Meanwhile, the usual goes on as usual...

I saw a tweet from Douglas Murray responding to this tweet from Justin Trudeau:

The attack on congregants at the Dar Al-Tawheed Islamic Centre is incredibly disturbing. I strongly condemn this violence – which has no place in Canada – and I’m keeping the community in my thoughts today. I also want to applaud the courage of those who were there this morning.

Douglas replied:

In related news, the name of the alleged attacker is Mohammad Moiz Omar.

This led me to other tweets, some from Canadian MPs leaping in too soon to denounce 'Islamophobia', others responding to those Canadian MPs telling them the name of the alleged attacker and criticising them for leaping in too soon, and leaping to conclusions. It also led me to tweets criticising the Canadian answer to the CBC for doing what we so often accuse the BBC of doing.

But what of the BBC themselves? 

They've reported it under the headline Canada mosque: Worshippers stop axe wielding attacker. 

In typical BBC fashion they do mention Mohammad Moiz Omar but wait until the 10th paragraph to do so:

Worshippers at a Canada mosque have confronted and restrained a man who was allegedly wielding an axe and attacked them with bear spray during Saturday morning prayers, police say.

One worshipper knocked the axe from the man's hands, and held him down until police arrived, local media reports.

A 24-year-old man was arrested at the scene in the suburb of Mississauga, and he has since been charged.

Some congregants had minor injures from the bear spray, the mosque's imam said.

One of the worshippers said the experience was "terrifying" and described hearing a scream before turning around to see a man holding an axe and using bear spray - similar to pepper spray - against three people.

"By the time he was spraying, the people in the first row realized something was going on and one of the young men turned around and knocked away the axe before he had a chance to use it," Noorani Sairally told Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.

The young man then held the alleged assailant down until police arrived, the witness said.

"Before he could inflict harm on any worshippers, several congregants bravely were able to stop him in his tracks," imam Ibrahim Hindy said in a statement, describing the moment the attacker entered the site.

"Our community will never be broken and we refuse to be intimated," he added.

Police have named the man they arrested as Mohammad Moiz Omar, and charged him with six offences including assault with a weapon and administering a noxious substance with intent to endanger life or cause bodily harm.

Here, courtesy of CNN, is how the BBC could have reported it. These are CNN's opening two paragraphs:

Worshipers at a mosque in the Canadian city of Mississauga on Saturday subdued a man who discharged bear spray while brandishing a hatchet in what police said was a possible hate crime.

Mohammad Moiz Omar, a 24-year-old Mississauga resident, was arrested at the Dar Al-Tawheed Islamic Centre about 7 a.m. local time during the dawn prayer of Fajr, Peel Regional Police said in a statement.

Isn't that so much more instantly informative?

The other typical thing about the BBC report is that having finally mentioned Mohammad Moiz Omar they then proceed as if the attack was an Islamophobic attack after all and end by rounding up reminders of past Islamophobic attacks in Canada, as if they were relevant to this attack.

Nothing changes.

Trudeau Grit

A couple of commenters at Biased BBC have independently spotted a BBC online article called Justin Trudeau takes Canada by the horns as Prime Minister. Neither seemed exactly impressed at its impartiality:

Pass the sick bag. The BBC is gushing over Trudeau of Canada’s fresh start. 

‘Justin Trudeau takes Canada by the horns as Prime Minister’ – says this BBC love letter. (Have your sick bucket handy). I can only imagine the ‘journalist’ didn’t have time to inform us that Justin will personally pilot the first manned mission to Mars whilst announcing the cure for all cancers.

It felt like 'gushing' to me too, being wholly positive in its reporting of the new PM's fresh start on gender equality, climate change, immigration, the war in Syria, etc. There are also nothing but supportive or helpful comments from various Canadian news outlets. Wonder who wrote it? Justin Trudeau?

From Canada election: Liberals sweep to power as the election results came in through to the above article, Mr Trudeau's coverage has been strikingly positive. The BBC News website has also given us Young Canadians' hopes for a new era under Trudeau, Is Canada's new PM the only world leader with a tattoo? and Canada's Middle East policy set for shake-up under new PM - a strikingly unbalanced piece, where the 'deft', 'nuanced' Mr Trudeau is contrasted with the 'hard', 'absolute' policies of the pro-Israel, Muslim-offending Mr Harper.

All of this contrasts sharply with the coverage afforded Stephen Harper by the BBC when he won power in 2006. I can find only three articles on the BBC website from that time: Canada's right returns from wilderness, New Canadian PM rebuffs US envoy and Will Kyoto die at Canadian hands? (The BBC didn't cover Canada much back then). 

The last of those three articles came from the BBC's former environment correspondent Richard Black and will doubtless bring back 'happy memories' of his old BBC 'reporting' (or 'activism' as many saw it). Here's how it began, for old time's sake:

When the history of the Kyoto Protocol comes to be written, Canada will appear as a particularly influential figure in the narrative.
It has already played the role of Florence Nightingale, nursing the treaty back from the brink of oblivion.
Is Canada's newly elected Conservative Party now preparing to don the mantle of Darth Vader and emasculate the protocol to the point of impotence?
"We're very depressed," said John Bennett, senior policy adviser to the Sierra Club of Canada, a prominent environmental group?

etc.