The Muslim terrorist story media ignored
Yousaf Hamid wrote last week:
One story you probably won’t have heard recently is the attempted terrorist attack on Glasgow Central Mosque. Neil MacGregor has pleaded guilty to not only trying to blow up Scotland’s biggest Mosque but also to threatening to behead one Muslim a week until there are no more Mosques in Scotland.
It’s a shocking attack with extremely sinister objectives. Surely if anything is newsworthy then this is it? Yet there’s been barely a peep from any media outlets. I wonder why there has been no press coverage on this at all. Would it be different if it was a Muslim extremist trying to blow up a church or synagogue? The sentencing will be tomorrow morning.
He’s right – there has been zilch coverage in the MSM. Bit strange that eh? Or perhaps not. There’s also a campaigning Facebook group to raise this issue.
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Filed in: Islamists,Media,Terrorism
There was also some good news about Glasgow Central Mosque that was only reported in one place:
“Muslim old guard relent to young reformers after mosque power grab”
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2498504.0.muslim_old_guard_relent_to_young_reformers_after_mosque_power_grab.php
“A DECADE-LONG battle between Scotland’s Muslim old guard and a new generation of reformers has been won by the young liberals who will now move into positions of power in the country’s largest mosque. The clash is being interpreted as a battle between older believers who define themselves as Pakistani and younger ones who see themselves as Scottish-British. Young Muslims have been pushing for reform at Glasgow’s Central Mosque for 10 years. They want women and children to play a greater role and for imams to engage more with the non-Muslim community. They also want the religious focus of Islam in Scotland to contend with modern social evils, including drug abuse and gang violence.”
Did Mr MacGregor possess explosives, have access to explosives or know how to make explosives? Did he have accomplices?- it takes more than one person to behead someone; they usually wriggle and the blows miss the neck unless they are held still. In short, was he anything but a loudmouth with sick fantasies? There was only a brief trial too so journalists didn’t have much time to learn about him.
In fact, there have been quite a few reports of possible muslim terrorists that weren’t given much publicity. For example, Faisal Mostafa- recently arrested in Bangladesh for running a madrassa-cum-arsenal- was tried and acquitted on explosives offences and convicted of firearms offences without reaching the front page.
That is strange- and I wrote a blog accusing that episode of Bonekickers of being farfetched!
Had this been reported in the mainstream media, most DailyMail readers would have probably suggested he was right and had no other choice as Muslims and immigrants are taking over and draining the benefits system due to the Labour government they all voted into power.
Roger, remember your name sake, Roger Cottage. BNP member, caught with explosives, a rocket launcher, planning on attacking Muslims and Mosques, given 2.5 years. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jul/31/thefarright.ukcrime
He didn’t even make TV.
The local and regional print media is in a terrible state at the moment. And could well get even worse. The nationals often pick stuff up from locals and regionals so if they’re screwed national coverage will suffer also. Expect loads more ‘hard’ news stories like this one to slip through the net in the months/years to come.
And as for proper court reporting…forget it. We don’t have the staff to have a reporter sitting in court all day anymore. LOADS of interesting things going on court are now completely unreported.
But if no one wants to invest in news and journalism such is life.
I’m sure we all eagerly await jackboot jacqui’s forthcoming tour of the country wherein she urges the ‘white community’ to get its extremists in order.
The media generally finds stories that fit well in established narratives, normally financed by the current acceptable political model, and also influenced by the cultural bias of the day.
So a story like this which is counter-intuitive in the racial/cultural identities of both the perpetrator and potential victims will certainly not become mainstream. Of course you then have all this talk of slipping the net and the “Rogers” (like post #2) who consume the normal trash will strain and stretch in an attempt at justifiying this kind of thing.
Sorry, I know its obvious but maybe someone out there is not aware of it yet.
Roger
“In fact, there have been quite a few reports of possible muslim terrorists that weren’t given much publicity. For example, Faisal Mostafa- recently arrested in Bangladesh for running a madrassa-cum-arsenal- was tried and acquitted on explosives offences and convicted of firearms offences without reaching the front page.”
But it was still reported. The Glasgow mosque attempted attack was ignored.
And are you seriously suggesting what happens in Bangladesh is more news worthy in the UK than an attempted terrorist attack on the largest mosque in Scotland?
The media will be the death of us Muslims
That is really quite strange. I ‘know’ about this story from a while back, and I’d assumed it was from local media, but you are all completely correct, there is no evidence for that at all. I must have heard about it through word of mouth or something.
Very true, but given the comparative coverage given to that Muslim woman a little while ago who wrote offensive “poems” online (the ‘lyrical terrorist’: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samina_Malik ) and was prosecuted under the Terrorism Act (and rightly so), one would have expected the attempted attack on Glasgow Central Mosque to have received much greater publicity.
The fact that it didn’t is an unfortunate sign of the times and an indication that, in some quarters of the media and society in general, Muslims are indeed the villains du jour. Some double standards are at play here.
This makes me so mad! Zilch is right..
Double standards or what..
I’m surprised that you ppl are surprised at this
I agree with the comments about the prevailing narrative and this event being counter-intuitive.
The most important reason for reporting it, and perhaps giving it exceptional coverage is the fissures that may be developing within our society.
The rampant coverage of all-things negative about muslims is obviously the compost idiots like Neil MacGregor need to set them off. It will not be the organised far-right to worry about, it will be individuals in their bedrooms, or at the bar.
In the end unless, the likes of Blears and the bottom-feeder blogshites (naming no names on this occasion) are countered effectively, we will all pay the price.
Its nuts to carry on arguing that only muslims are in the cross-hairs. Its this society that is being undermined by the media. It would be wrong to presume they all know what they are doing.
Ian Dales’s contributors provide some links http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-if-it-had-been-muslim.html
Hmmm I reckon there’s a real opportunity here for a trans-regional citizen journalism project here…
Leon
‘Hmmm I reckon there’s a real opportunity here for a trans-regional citizen journalism project here…’
And much more.
“attempted terrorist attack”
is this actually correct ? According to the HuT website,
“The court heard how 35-year-old MacGregor admitted sending a race hate email to Strathclyde Police threatening to blow up [Glasgow Central] Mosque if certain demands weren’t met. Included in the chilling message was a threat to behead one Muslim a week in the same manner construction worker Ken Bigley was killed after he was kidnapped in Iraq in 2004.
MacGregor followed the email up with a 999 call to cops on February 5, 2007. The court was told that during the brief call MacGregor claimed he was from the National Front and that a bomb was going to go off. He said: “A bomb will go off in the Central Mosque later this week. Now f*** off.†Cops raced to the Mosque to search it for explosive devices, but failed to locate anything suspicious.”
Now that doesn’t sound like an attempted attack to me. It sounds like a mouthy idiot. Any evidence of anything more ?
platinum786 – “Roger Cottage. BNP member, caught with explosives, a rocket launcher, planning on attacking Muslims and Mosques”
a) Robert, not Roger.
b) no explosives, no rocket launcher. The mysterious rocket launcher disappeared from the court evidence quite early on, as did the alleged radiological protection suits. But he DID plead guilty to possessing explosives – despite the fact that he didn’t have any, although he had things you could use to make explosives out of.
c) no evidence was presented that Robert Cottage planned to attack Muslims or mosques. What was presented was his wife’s evidence :
“He thinks there’s a war going to happen with the culture, the Asian culture and the white culture and that Tony Blair and President Bush are scheming against people”
He sounds more like a HuT member every day.
http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2007/08/boom-bang-bang.html
Now that doesn’t sound like an attempted attack to me. It sounds like a mouthy idiot. Any evidence of anything more ?
Which, sounds like most Jihadis too (including the ‘lyrical terrorist’) and yet there was far more coverage then.
It’s true that people like that chap who threatened to blow up Bluewater (but didn’t know where it was) got headlines where this chap didn’t, but I’m not sure I’d lunp him in with ‘most jihadis’. Our lyrical terrorist and her spiritual brothers didn’t mail the police to tell them what they were up to, let alone ringing them up. This chap just sounds like a drunk.
An alternative theory, which is unlikely but not completely impossible, is that the story’s being played down because of intervention by HMGs Community Cohesion Partnerships, as blogged here.
Our rulers are so convinced that white racism is everywhere that I wouldn’t put it past them to suppress the story for fear of copycats.
Leon,
So, does anyone want me to see if I can get into the court and report back? It’s just up the road.
It’ll be interesting to see how much coverage the sentencing gets today, and whether the Sheriff makes any comments about the case or the stooshie Osama Saeed has tried to stir up.
Regarding coverage, people seem to have ignored that MacGregor plead guilty at his hearing ie there was no trial to cover, unlike with the Lyrical Terrorist.
He’ll have been in court for all of 10 minutes, the PF will have read a brief suimmation of the charges, MacGregor will have plead guilty and then sentencing will have been deferred for reports.