The Guardian is really on a roll:
Mehdi Hasan revealed the Islamophobic abuse he’s endured online. It’s something all racial minority writers face…
It is a good point. We know, from our own experiences running blogs, that there are some commenters who will use any opportunity to field the vilest bigotry against a writer, for no reason other than their ethnicity or their religion.
But, oh dear. First Mehdi Hasan, who himself uses abusive and racist language against non-Muslims, and defends other hatemongers by accusing their critics of being Islamophobes – that is, unless the hatemongers attack his own beloved Shia Islam.
Now we’re offered:
Inayat Bunglawala who famously said:
The chairman of Carlton Communications is Michael Green, of the tribe of Judah. He has joined an elite club whose members include fellow Jews Michael Grade (Chief Executive at Channel Four) and Alan Yentob (Controller at BBC2 and friend of Salman Rushdie). The three are reported to be “close friends” (The Times, Oct. 17). So that’s what they mean by a “free media”!
He says that he wouldn’t now defend these comments, incidentally. So, he’s a reformed character, right?
Roll forward to 2008, and Bungle gets censured by the Guardian Readers Editor for breach of Article 12 of the PCC Code. In the article, which tackled the subject of Muslim-scare-stories in the Daily Express, he couldn’t resist mentioning that Richard Desmond is Jewish. He drew attention to Desmond’s ethnicity again in 2010. And again in 2011: gleefully quoting the former An Phoblacht/IRA journalist, Roy Greenslade, who himself later apologised for his comments.
Simon Woolley: whose Operation Black Vote promoted a rally in support of the racist and extremist Nation of Islam, whose premises had been raided for drugs, for which the police had already apologies.
Make no mistake. Whether or not you have been guilty of promoting racism, hatred and bigotry, you should never be subjected to such taunts and jibes yourself.
But blimey – when it comes to making an important point, The Guardian has an unfailing ability to pick some of the worst advocates for it in Britain!
(The other voices on the pages are nice and blameless people, and make the point far better)
