Canada: Muslim leader calls for migrant sex assaults to be covered up
The insertion of 2 words — Syrian refugee — completely changed the dimension of the story.What is CBC really trying to say and/or imply in its coverage of “a Syrian refugee” who has been “accused of sexual assaults on six Edmonton teenage girls”?
The best defense against and prevention of any actual “anti-Muslim backlash” would be for Muslims to unite with society at large and demand the screening of refugees; but instead, Mohamed Huque, the executive director of the Islamic Family and Social Services Association, is stating that Muslim refugee sex attacks on women should be covered up, because he thinks the race or religion of the perpetrator is irrelevant. But it is very relevant when large numbers of people from one single group are choosing to practice what is a religious mandate in Islam, that women be covered up or invite sex attacks:
(Quran 24:31) And tell the believing women to reduce of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which appears thereof and to wrap their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.If a woman does not cover up, she is fair game to be assaulted:
(Quran 33:59) O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused.Muslim leaders pretending that Muslims are the victims when Muslims commit crimes on a large scale must be exposed and opposed. Their verbal reprisals against those who resist jihadists and Islamic supremacists are getting more aggressive and hostile as their incursion into the West continues. The leftist media, meanwhile, is aiding and abetting this blame-shifting.
Of course, “white people” and other non-Muslims commit sex crimes, too, but not on an the epidemic scale that we are seeing from Muslim migrants across Europe. It has been amply reported that the attacks are specifically against infidel women who need to cover up themselves to avoid such attacks, in accord with sharia norms.
Contrary to the claims in the biased report below that racism is a factor in attitudes toward Syrian refugees, exacerbated by the “alt-right,” the opponents of the refugee influx are concerned not about race, but about the lack of screening that has resulted in chaos across Europe, as well as about the failure to protect Western citizens from being victimized by those Muslim migrants who are unwilling to assimilate.
David Tait, a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, who has taught ethics courses of all subjects at the journalism school, asks:
My question would be, would we have run additional background details about this person if they were a gay man? A gun owner? If they were Jewish? If they were a fundamentalist Christian? If they were a recent arrival from the United States? If they were any number of other identifiers?The answer to Tait’s question is no; neither would such checks be needed if the alleged perpetrator were Chinese, Japanese or Hindu. Tait makes the Syrian migrant crisis out to be about “white people” versus visible minorities, which it is not. Canadians and Americans have every right to concern themselves with security in light of what is happening in Europe.
“Storm of reaction to news Syrian refugee charged with sex assaults”, by Rick McConnell, Zoe Todd & Wallis Snowdon, CBC News, February 10, 2017:
‘The insertion of 2 words — Syrian refugee — completely changed the dimension of the story’.
Reports that a man accused of sexual assaults on six Edmonton teenage girls was a Syrian refugee have ignited a firestorm of reaction, from anti-immigration diatribes to criticism about how the media dealt with the story.
Groups that work with refugees in the city have been inundated with calls and texts over the past 24 hours, some from people calling for an end to the refugee program and others from refugees themselves apologizing on behalf of their community.
Erick Ambtman, executive director of the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, said his organization received a message on Twitter from a white supremacist group that included a picture of a Syrian refugee, asking the centre to confirm whether the photo was the same man accused of the crimes.
“It may be just to scare us or to unnerve people,” Ambtman said.
“But around my office that’s what’s happening. People are starting to get really nervous, and the [English] language students are starting to get really nervous.
“And the Syrian students are apologizing for somebody who they don’t even know, because he’s got the same country of origin as they do.
“It’s really spiralling into a really ugly place.”
Soleiman Hajj Soleiman, 39, was arrested Saturday and charged with six counts of sexual assault and six counts of sexual interference after six teenage girls, all younger than 16, told police they were inappropriately touched while swimming at the West Edmonton Mall water park.
New complainant comes forward
When Edmonton police announced the charges on Wednesday, they urged any other complainants or witnesses to contact them. One more complainant and one more witness have since come forward, police spokesperson Scott Pattison said Thursday.
The man charged in the case was a Syrian refugee who arrived in Canada in January 2016, a fact that was reported Wednesday by numerous news outlets, including CBC News.
The story was quickly picked up by alt-right websites and anti-immigration groups. It was shared widely on social media.
Mohamed Huque, executive director of the Islamic Family and Social Services Association, said reports about Soleiman’s refugee status unfairly vilified an entire community.
“It’s going to inflame a segment of our population who already harbour a bias, a discrimination or unfair views towards newcomers,” said Huque, whose group last year helped resettle 250 Syrian refugees.
“I think this certainly emboldens them.”
Huque said the case has already being used to incite fear of new immigrants, and has cast a negative light on thousands of refugees.
“The insertion of two words — Syrian refugee — completely changed the dimension of the story,” he said. “What was initially a local crime story became a wider discussion about screening practices, immigration levels. It just turned into an entirely different debate.”
‘It’s not relevant to the story’
Huque said the suspect’s immigration status is not relevant to the crime, and journalists had a duty to keep those details out of their coverage. He said news outlets, including CBC, are often inconsistent in their reporting on the racial backgrounds of suspects.
Media reports must take into account the everyday discriminations newcomers to Canada often face, Huque said.
Deciding who to publicly identify without recognizing the hostility towards immigrants will make already vulnerable people targets for more hatred, he said.
“If this person was Caucasian, that wouldn’t have been identified in any way, because it’s not relevant to the story. And his immigration status certainly shouldn’t be.
“Responsible journalists should be aware of the political climate, so when we use that kind of language or when we ascribe a community to an individual, we need to be wary of the implications,” Huque said.
When the media reports stories like this one, decisions about what information is relevant have to be made on a case-by-case basis and sometimes on a day-by-day basis, said David Tait, a professor at Ottawa’s Carleton University who has taught ethics courses at the journalism school.
“Journalists have to sort of go and look at a situation not from the standpoint of, ‘Is there public appetite for this information? Do people want to know it?’ But, ‘Is that detail relevant at this stage to this story?’
“And that’s a very difficult thing to determine as a journalist, because you also have to be careful that you’re not making your judgment for some sort of social engineering purpose.
“To say, ‘Oh I don’t want to make these sorts of people look bad’ or ‘I don’t want to make these sorts of people look good.’ You shouldn’t make your journalistic judgments based on how you want people to think about something, because that’s not the journalistic mission.”
‘Our job is to report what’s going on’
Tait said in this case, while reporting immediately after the arrest was made public, he would have questioned whether details about the accused’s background were relevant.
“My question would be, would we have run additional background details about this person if they were a gay man? A gun owner? If they were Jewish? If they were a fundamentalist Christian? If they were a recent arrival from the United States? If they were any number of other identifiers?”
It’s the responsibility of journalists to try to determine what the public needs to know to understand the story. Once the public has the information, people will make their own choices about what’s relevant to them, he said.
Some will seize on information that confirms their own views about the world and overlook other aspects of the story.
“Our job is to report what’s going on out there in the world,” he said.
The story about the water park allegation, Tait said, “is a classic example of where people these days are rushing to grab details, to use individual facts as weapons instead of looking at those details and saying, ‘How does this fit into my developing understanding of the world?'”
Ambtman said Soleiman came to Canada in January 2016 with his wife and six children, aged one to 13 years. The family was assisted by the Mennonite Centre.
Some commenters are exploiting the fact that a Syrian refugee has been charged with a crime, he said.
“They’re exploiting what’s happened to these girls to say something about immigration, and it’s just a really ugly thing to do. It’s been pretty awful to bear witness to.”….
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