What if they were Muslim?

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Media has anti-Muslim bias, claims report

MediaGuardian, Monday 14 November 2005 10.18 GMT

The portrayal of Arab and Muslim people in the western media is "typically stereotypical and negative", according to a new study of perceptions of Islam.

The report, commissioned by the Kuwaiti government and based on a surveys and interviews with media experts, claims that terrorism, anti-Americanism and the Iraq occupation dominate TV news coverage of the Middle East.

"In the past 30 years of thousands of TV show series, there have been less than 10 characters who have been Arab-Americans," the report claims.

"In print stereotypes are not so obvious, except in cartoon caricatures, but they still occur and anti-Muslim bias is more insidious. The terms Islamic or Muslim are linked to extremism, militant, jihads, as if they belonged together inextricably and naturally (Muslim extremist, Islamic terror, Islamic war, Muslim time bomb).

"In many cases, the press talks and writes about Muslims in ways that would not be acceptable if the reference were to Jewish, black or fundamentalist Christians."

The report says the portrayal of Islam is improving in "certain prestigious news organisations" but that TV news continues to be dominated by coverage of terrorist attacks and hostage images "to shock and engage jaded viewers".

"Western media organisations must see normal Muslims in everyday life, as professionals, educators, parents, community leaders and participants," it adds.

The study claims that TV news and documentaries have the strongest influence on people's views of Islam, followed by newspaper coverage.

Of the 2,420 people interviewed in the US and western Europe, nearly half said TV documentaries had a strong or very strong influence on their views of Arab Muslims. For television news, the figure was 41%, while 36% of respondents said the same about newspaper coverage.

Around 37% of respondents said they had very limited exposure to news and information about Islam, while nearly three-quarters said the media depicts Arab Muslims and Islam accurately only half the time.

The study was unveiled at the NewsXchange conference in Amsterdam last week.

"The image of Islam has been hijacked by extremists and it is time to take it back," Chris Yalounis, one of the authors of the report, told the conference.

[mawilson 2,133]

So?

So Muslims do, thus drawing the world's attention to the fact that they are Muslim.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Booby-trap bomb kills Northern Ireland policeman

updated 4/2/2011 8:33:05 PM ET

DUBLIN — A 25-year-old Catholic policeman who had just joined Northern Ireland's police force has been killed after a booby-trap bomb exploded as he got into his car, police and neighbors said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack in the town of Omagh. But police and politicians universally blamed Irish Republican Army dissidents who have repeatedly planted bombs underneath the private cars of off-duty police officers, particularly new Catholic recruits, in a bid to stop cross-community support for law and order.

Until Saturday, such booby-trap attacks had badly maimed two other officers, but killed nobody. It was the first lethal attack on Northern Ireland security forces in more than two years.

The IRA dissidents have stressed their determination to target any Irish Catholics who join the Northern Ireland police force. Building Catholic support for the once Protestant-dominated police force is a central goal of Northern Ireland's peace process.

"Those who carried out this wicked and cowardly crime will never succeed in dragging Northern Ireland back to a dark and bloody past," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in London.

And reflecting the exceptional political solidarity in Northern Ireland today, leaders from both the British Protestant and Irish Catholic sides of the community condemned the bombers and vowed to bring them to justice.

"While those behind this act seek to promote division and conflict, let us state clearly: They will fail," said Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander who is the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland's four-year-old unity government. "The process of peacebuilding will continue and the community is united in rejection of them."

In Dublin, newly elected Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny called the killing "a heinous and pointless act of terror."

And his justice minister, Alan Shatter, vowed that "no effort will be spared in bringing the perpetrators of this dreadful crime to justice." Many of the IRA dissidents live along the border in the Republic of Ireland.

Neighbors of the victim in Omagh — a town synonymous with the greatest horror of the entire Northern Ireland conflict — said he had just entered his car when the bomb detonated beneath his legs.

IRA dissidents committed the deadliest single bombing of the entire Northern Ireland conflict in Omagh on Aug. 15, 1998, when a car bomb detonated amid a crowd of evacuated shoppers and workers. Twenty-nine people, mostly women and children, were killed.

No dissident was ever successfully prosecuted for that attack, so the 1998 attackers remain at large.

"I feel a lot of anger that another young life has been stolen, that this has happened again in our town," said Michael Gallagher, whose only son, 21-year-old Aiden, was among the dead in 1998.

The car sustained little damage but caught fire, and neighbors doused the flames with extinguishers. They identified the victim as Ronan Kerr, said he had just graduated from the police academy last month, and lived with his mother.

Several IRA splinter groups remain active in Northern Ireland. Anti-terrorist authorities estimate they have fewer than 500 members combined and no capacity to mount a sustained campaign of violence, only an occasional ability to kill. Police say the dissidents fund their activities through local rackets, including fuel and cigarette smuggling.

In March 2009, dissidents shot to death two off-duty British soldiers and a policeman. Those were the first slayings of British security forces since 1998, the year of Northern Ireland's peace accord.

Last year, dissidents detonated half a dozen car bombs outside security installations, businesses and a courthouse but caused little damage and wounded nobody seriously.

In the 1980s, IRA weapons engineers designed under-car booby trap bombs specifically to kill the driver. They typically were attached with magnets on the outside of the car, under the driver's seat and would detonate when the car drove up or down a slope.

But in Saturday's attack, the bomb appeared to explode immediately after the target got into the car.

Since 2007, IRA dissidents have planted dozens of such booby-trap bombs under the private cars of police officers. Most bombs failed to detonate, and several dud devices fell off onto roadways. Two policemen did lose their legs in such attacks in May 2008 and January 2010.

Northern Ireland's police force has been radically transformed over the past decade in a major success for the peace process. A policy of favoring Catholic recruits helped to turn the force from 8 percent Catholic in 2001 to 30 percent Catholic today.

But Catholic recruits remain particularly vulnerable to attacks by IRA dissidents, who chiefly live in working-class Catholic areas. Catholic police officers are unable to live or safely visit relatives in those areas.

The IRA killed nearly 1,800 people in a failed 1970-1997 campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. Most IRA members renounced violence and disarmed in 2005. Those peace moves cleared the way in 2007 for Protestants and Catholics, led by Sinn Fein, to forge a coalition government of former foes.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

So Muslims do, thus drawing the world's attention to the fact that they are Muslim.

'Allahu Akbar' is Arabic for God is great. Arabic speaking Christians also use the term.

Landmark Malaysian 'Allah' ruling

A court in Malaysia has ruled that Christians have a constitutional right to use the word Allah to refer to God.

The High Court said a government ban on non-Muslims using the word was unconstitutional.

The court was ruling on a lawsuit filed by the Herald, a publication of the Catholic Church in Malaysia, in 2007.

The authorities had insisted that Allah in the Malay language refers only to the God in Islam, which could only be used by Muslims.

The BBC's Jennifer Pak in Kuala Lumpur said some Muslim groups suspect the Catholic Church is seeking to encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity - a move which is illegal in Malaysia.

'Glorious new year'

The issue had become a symbol of a growing number of religious grievances among minority groups, in a political environment often divided along racial and religious lines, our correspondent adds.

The Herald filed for a judicial review after it was ordered in 2007 to stop referring to Allah in its publication.

The publication said it had been been using the word for decades, and had a constitutional right to do so.

The Herald welcomed Thursday's ruling, saying it would be a "glorious new year for some 850,000 Catholics in Malaysia".

More than half of Malaysia's population is Muslim but the large Chinese and Indian communities are mainly Christian, Buddhist or Hindu.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8435975.stm

Published: 2009/12/31 11:33:52 GMT

Why do many Arab Christians refer to God as “Allah”?

“Allah” is the Arabic word for “God” and has been so long before the existence of Islam. The names “Allah” and “God” are generally interchangeable within the Muslim religion and in Middle Eastern cultures. Some English translations of the Qu’ran (Koran) use the name “God,” others use“ Allah.” This sometimes comes as a surprise to Christians who were raised in Western cultures. Among former Muslims, many converts to Christianity commonly refer to God as “Allah.” (This is despite the fact that they recognize clear differences in the character of God as described by the Bible compared to Islamic writings. For example, although both Christians, Muslims and Jews firmly believe there is only one God, Christians have the additional doctrine of the Trinity.)

Of course, the word “God” does not actually appear in the original Hebrew or Greek manuscripts of the Bible, accepted as Holy by both Christians and Muslims. “God” is an old English word which developed from an Indo-European word, meaning “that which is invoked,” which is also the ancestor of the German word Gott (meaning: God).

Book: Building Bridges

The Navigators, a well-known evangelical Christian organization, published the following:

“…It’s interesting to observe that, in rejecting the Athenian’s erroneous concept of God, Paul did not reject the word they used for God, Theos, which was the common Greek word for God.

Some Christians unthinkingly say ‘Allah is not God.’ This is the ultimate blasphemy to Muslims, and furthermore, it is difficult to understand. Allah is the primary Arabic word for God. It means ‘The God.’ There are some minor exceptions. For example, the Bible in some Muslim lands uses a word for God other than Allah (Farsi and Urdu are examples). But for more than five hundred years before Muhammad, the vast majority of Jews and Christians in Arabia called God by the name Allah. How, then, can we say that Allah is an invalid name for God? If it is, to whom have these Jews and Christians been praying?

And what about the 10 to 12 million Arab Christians today? They have been calling God ‘Allah’ in their Bibles, hymns, poems, writings, and worship for over nineteen centuries. What an insult to them when we tell them not to use this word ‘Allah’! Instead of bridging the distance between Muslims and Christians, we widen the gulf of separation between them and us when we promote such a doctrine. Those who still insist that it is blasphemy to refer to God as Allah should also consider that Muhammad’s father was named Abd Allah, ‘God’s servant,’ many years before his son was born or Islam was founded!”

—excerpted from Building Bridges by Fouad Accad (Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress), p. 22.

Edited April 3, 2011 by Sofiyya

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

This thread is very good. It shows Christian Extremists do not get hidden under the rug by the media as people sometimes claim.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

This thread is very good. It shows Christian Extremists do not get hidden under the rug by the media as people sometimes claim.

It takes a lot more effort to dig up their stories. The ones about Muslims are much easier to find.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

It takes a lot more effort to dig up their stories. The ones about Muslims are much easier to find.

Really? The sources are main stream - San Francisco Chronicle, BBC etc.

I'll be honest most of these I suppose are considered...dare I say it..."liberal" news agencies?

Fox might shove it under the rug...

Edited April 3, 2011 by Sousuke

[Pooky 3,784]

Booby-trap bomb kills Northern Ireland policeman

updated 4/2/2011 8:33:05 PM ET

DUBLIN — A 25-year-old Catholic policeman who had just joined Northern Ireland's police force has been killed after a booby-trap bomb exploded as he got into his car, police and neighbors said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack in the town of Omagh. But police and politicians universally blamed Irish Republican Army dissidents who have repeatedly planted bombs underneath the private cars of off-duty police officers, particularly new Catholic recruits, in a bid to stop cross-community support for law and order.

Until Saturday, such booby-trap attacks had badly maimed two other officers, but killed nobody. It was the first lethal attack on Northern Ireland security forces in more than two years.

The IRA dissidents have stressed their determination to target any Irish Catholics who join the Northern Ireland police force. Building Catholic support for the once Protestant-dominated police force is a central goal of Northern Ireland's peace process.

"Those who carried out this wicked and cowardly crime will never succeed in dragging Northern Ireland back to a dark and bloody past," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in London.

And reflecting the exceptional political solidarity in Northern Ireland today, leaders from both the British Protestant and Irish Catholic sides of the community condemned the bombers and vowed to bring them to justice.

"While those behind this act seek to promote division and conflict, let us state clearly: They will fail," said Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander who is the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland's four-year-old unity government. "The process of peacebuilding will continue and the community is united in rejection of them."

In Dublin, newly elected Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny called the killing "a heinous and pointless act of terror."

And his justice minister, Alan Shatter, vowed that "no effort will be spared in bringing the perpetrators of this dreadful crime to justice." Many of the IRA dissidents live along the border in the Republic of Ireland.

Neighbors of the victim in Omagh — a town synonymous with the greatest horror of the entire Northern Ireland conflict — said he had just entered his car when the bomb detonated beneath his legs.

IRA dissidents committed the deadliest single bombing of the entire Northern Ireland conflict in Omagh on Aug. 15, 1998, when a car bomb detonated amid a crowd of evacuated shoppers and workers. Twenty-nine people, mostly women and children, were killed.

No dissident was ever successfully prosecuted for that attack, so the 1998 attackers remain at large.

"I feel a lot of anger that another young life has been stolen, that this has happened again in our town," said Michael Gallagher, whose only son, 21-year-old Aiden, was among the dead in 1998.

The car sustained little damage but caught fire, and neighbors doused the flames with extinguishers. They identified the victim as Ronan Kerr, said he had just graduated from the police academy last month, and lived with his mother.

Several IRA splinter groups remain active in Northern Ireland. Anti-terrorist authorities estimate they have fewer than 500 members combined and no capacity to mount a sustained campaign of violence, only an occasional ability to kill. Police say the dissidents fund their activities through local rackets, including fuel and cigarette smuggling.

In March 2009, dissidents shot to death two off-duty British soldiers and a policeman. Those were the first slayings of British security forces since 1998, the year of Northern Ireland's peace accord.

Last year, dissidents detonated half a dozen car bombs outside security installations, businesses and a courthouse but caused little damage and wounded nobody seriously.

In the 1980s, IRA weapons engineers designed under-car booby trap bombs specifically to kill the driver. They typically were attached with magnets on the outside of the car, under the driver's seat and would detonate when the car drove up or down a slope.

But in Saturday's attack, the bomb appeared to explode immediately after the target got into the car.

Since 2007, IRA dissidents have planted dozens of such booby-trap bombs under the private cars of police officers. Most bombs failed to detonate, and several dud devices fell off onto roadways. Two policemen did lose their legs in such attacks in May 2008 and January 2010.

Northern Ireland's police force has been radically transformed over the past decade in a major success for the peace process. A policy of favoring Catholic recruits helped to turn the force from 8 percent Catholic in 2001 to 30 percent Catholic today.

But Catholic recruits remain particularly vulnerable to attacks by IRA dissidents, who chiefly live in working-class Catholic areas. Catholic police officers are unable to live or safely visit relatives in those areas.

The IRA killed nearly 1,800 people in a failed 1970-1997 campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. Most IRA members renounced violence and disarmed in 2005. Those peace moves cleared the way in 2007 for Protestants and Catholics, led by Sinn Fein, to forge a coalition government of former foes.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You didn't live in the UK during the Troubles, did you.

The press coverage there for the best part of 30 years was extensive. The reason it may not have made such a dent in the US was because a large part of the terrorists' money came from these shores.

[Ban Hammer 13,343]

dueling copy/paste!

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Rise of U.S. Anti-Muslim Sentiment, Media Coverage & NY Counter-Rally today

March 6, 2011 at 12:21 am by Sofia

. . . after reading this/watching the videos below, close your eyes, imagine this, and take note of your emotions:

Muslim politicians inciting hatred and violence against Christian minorities.

Crowds of angry Muslims harassing Christians as they walk into their place of worship

Muslim gangs killing a Christian minority

Muslims vandalizing or setting church property on fire

Given current events, hate crimes do happen and are committed by all kinds of groups, and we strongly condemn them, especially when done by Muslims.

However, the questions I’m interested in now relate to media coverage and our reactions to “all kinds of groups” who commit hate crimes. For example, compare the media coverage when a Christian minority is hurt/harassed/killed in a Muslim country VERSUS when a Muslim minority is hurt/harassed/killed. How widely known are incidents like this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this? Could the slanted media coverage be fanning the current anti-Muslim sentiment?

[Sofiyya 1,687]

You didn't live in the UK during the Troubles, did you.

The press coverage there for the best part of 30 years was extensive. The reason it may not have made such a dent in the US was because a large part of the terrorists' money came from these shores.

I'm not saying that the coverage wasn't extensive, but it didn't create the sort of hateful rhetoric that anything associated with Muslims or Islam does in the western press, not even when a prominent anti-Muslim politician is a known IRA supporter.

Edited April 3, 2011 by Sofiyya

[Pooky 3,784]

I'm not saying that the coverage wasn't extensive, but it didn't create the sort of hateful rhetoric that anything associated with Muslims or Islam does in the western press, not even when a prominent anti-Muslim politician is a known IRA supporter.

Are you kidding me????

It may have done so outside of the UK, but inside was a whole different story. Look up the Reverend Ian Paisley and then tell me honestly if you believe the rhetoric was one iota less.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Really? The sources are main stream - San Francisco Chronicle, BBC etc.

I'll be honest most of these I suppose are considered...dare I say it..."liberal" news agencies?

Fox might shove it under the rug...

Yes, really. Those are just the easier ones to find. You can trip over dozens of stories where even nominal Muslims are identified as the perpetrators before you find one with a Christian or Jewish ID.

[mawilson 2,133]

Yes, really. Those are just the easier ones to find. You can trip over dozens of stories where even nominal Muslims are identified as the perpetrators before you find one with a Christian or Jewish ID.

Could it be, perhaps, that there are more Muslim terrorists than Christian or Jewish terrorists?

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Are you kidding me????

It may have done so outside of the UK, but inside was a whole different story. Look up the Reverend Ian Paisley and then tell me honestly if you believe the rhetoric was one iota less.

No, I'm not kidding you, but I'm old enough to remember when anti-Catholic rhetoric and anti-Black rhetoric was the norm in the media. Dismissing anti-Islam/Muslim propaganda with red herrings isn't the topic here. Start a thread about that, if you wish.

Could it be, perhaps, that there are more Muslim terrorists than Christian or Jewish terrorists?

Perhaps the definition of terrorist has been expanded for Muslims?