Reuters Report Failed to Disclose Ethnic Identity of UK Terror Suspects

Photo of Mark Finkelstein.
By Mark Finkelstein (Bio | Archive)
January 31, 2007 - 06:59 ET

Not that there was any real doubt, when you turned on the news this morning and heard the report that eight men had been arrested in England and charged with plotting terror attacks including the Al-Qaeda style beheading of a police officer, that the suspects were Muslim, but you wouldn't know it from this Reuters report on the arrests.

Any reference to the ethnic or religious origins of the suspects was absent.

In contrast, this Bloomberg report stated that "Sky News [Fox News sister network] said the arrested men were British born of Pakistani origin, while one was Pakistani."

The Bloomberg report contained some additional, and disturbing, facts coming from a recent study:

"[T]he interest of young Muslims in religion was more politicized than it had been for their parents. Three quarters of 16- to 24-year- olds questioned said they would prefer Muslim women to wear a veil. Among the 55-year-olds and above, only 28 percent favored it.

"The survey showed that younger rather than older Muslims were more likely to prefer living under the Islamic legal framework, or Sharia, and favored Islamic schools over non- religious state schools."

Unsurprisingly, Reuters didn't mention that study either.

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net

Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Muslims

January 31, 2007 - 07:25 ET by BBallleaper

With Muslim birthrates skyrocketing across Western Europe while the indigenous population is decreasing, places like England have a rude awakening facing them in the next decade.  Once islamic fundamentalism takes hold, their governments are infiltrated, and their cultures decimated, we will see the demise of Western Europe.

With Muslim birthrates skyr

January 31, 2007 - 07:37 ET by DontFeedTheTrolls

With Muslim birthrates skyrocketing across Western Europe . . .

They aren't just sitting on their hands here in America either.

DSG

Want your elected reps to know what you think? Go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/, it's real easy.

You're right. What we're seei

January 31, 2007 - 18:56 ET by BW222

You're right. What we're seeing in Europe is "coming to America" in about 20 years (even sooner if the politically correct have their way.)

Yes countries in Europe like

January 31, 2007 - 07:38 ET by HumanEvents

Yes countries in Europe like England have the double whammy of increasing liberalism and increasing islamification going on.

I also see from the Associated Press that this story of eight arrested in Britain had no mention of the word muslim or of anything to describe these eight men other than "terrorist". The MSM sure hate to use the M word. They protect that religion with as much force as they attack the Christian religion.

And I also see from that survey that "Thirty-six percent of the younger group said a Muslim who converted to another religion should be "punished by death," while only 19 percent of the older group agreed." Yes it's absolutely horrifying to contemplate what the situation will be like come 10 (or even 5) years from now.

Are they scared of the Muslim

January 31, 2007 - 10:22 ET by

Are they scared of the Muslims? What is their problem?

Yes Deb, they fear the muslim

January 31, 2007 - 10:35 ET by bassndude

Yes Deb, they fear the muslims. They are cowards and will not report the whole truth. Some journalistic standards, uh?

Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!

They're kowtowing to the Mu

January 31, 2007 - 10:39 ET by Dyne

They're kowtowing to the Muslim terrorists because they think that, if they get on their side, they'll leave them alone. Not true. The terrorists aren't racist, they hate all Westerners (especially Americans) equally.

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone." - Bill Cosby

I know this is far-fetched bu

January 31, 2007 - 10:53 ET by Prester John

I know this is far-fetched but maybe they don't think there is really a need to identify the suspects.  After reading what they were planning how many people would actually think that the suspects were anything other thant "you know who"?

But that is really the proble

January 31, 2007 - 12:11 ET by TheBlueMax

But that is really the problem, isn't it? By repeatedly not fully identifying who is committing these terroristic acts only furthers the public's impression that these types of Islamic threats shouldn't be taken seriously, which is the tactic the press takes.