Selective media coverage
The world immediately condemned the cowardly attacks with the #Belgiumunderattack hashtag going viral on social networks. But a similar crime committed earlier by Daesh terrorists in Istanbul, which killed almost as many innocent people, went largely unnoticed, Manije B.Hashem wrote in Friday’s issue of Norway’s largest daily newspaper Aftenposten.
“Just as I am writing this it happened again! At least 60 innocent people were killed by a terrorist attack in Lahore, Pakistan and again it went largely ignored by the world leaders and world media. It looks like some people are more important than others,” Hashem noted.
With their extensive coverage of barbaric acts perpetrated by terrorists groups in the West the media actually plays into the hands of people like Behring Breivik, who say that “Islam and Muslims are at war with the West,” she added.
Daesh mostly kills Muslims
“The hard fact is that the Muslim world suffers more from Daesh than any other nation or ethnic group,” Manije B.Hashem wrote.
Daesh has killed more Muslims than anyone else. It is responsible for the present migrant crisis and it has given Islam a very bad name.
Online papers and Facebook are full of hateful comments about Islam and Muslims made by people who think that Daesh kills Westerners only while sparing fellow Muslims.
“I wish those who write these comment realized that we, Muslims, despise Daesh and other terrorists groups as much as they do,” she noted.
“Unless we realize that ‘Daesh is against the whole world,’ including Muslims, that terror is terror be it in Turkey, Syria, Paris or Brussel, and learn to value people regardless of their nationality or creed, we will never prevail over our common enemy,” Manije B.Hashem wrote in conclusion.