Robert Spencer
We see the same thing from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Muslim groups in the West: they don’t focus on Muslim clerics saying terrible things and Muslim believers acting on their words. They only get angry when non-Muslims report on these words and activities. The problem is not jihad violence, it’s reporting on jihad violence, which is “hate speech.”
“Journalists Threatened By Cleric For Reporting ‘Tablighi Jamaat’ Incident; NBA Hits Out,” ABP Live, April 6, 2020.
Journalists of electronic media, including anchors and reporters were threatened for reporting the Tablighi Jamaat congregation which acted as a super spreader of coronavirus in Delhi and other parts of the country, by a cleric named Maulana Ali Qadri on social media. The News Broadcasters Association, taking notice of the act, strongly denounced it in a statement.
While speaking to ABP News, Maulana Qadri apologized for his hateful statements, however he later walked out of the show, when confronted with questions.
News Broadcasters Association (NBA) said in a statement that it views with grave concern the tendency among people belonging to a certain section of society resorting to abuses and threats against anchors and reporters working in news channels. This particular trend has been noticed after electronic media recently exposed the role of Tablighi Jamaat in the spread of Coronavirus, resulting in a nationwide spurt in number of positive cases and subsequent deaths, the body said.
Anchors and reporters working in news channels are being specifically targeted through social media platforms like WhatsApp, TikTok and Twitter, it said in the statement. There are videos circulating on social media in which some religious preachers are naming some TV news anchors and threatening attacks on the reporters of those channels.
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