Media Storm - S4E9 Bigotry & bad information: Islamophobia, far-right riots, and Olympic boxing row

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

This week has seen stories of bigotry, fuelled by bad information. Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant riots sprung up across the UK, with no factual basis in the incident that triggered them - a stabbing attack that killed three young girls in Southport last Monday, founded on a widespread fake news story that the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker who arrived ‘illegally’ by boat. But some mainstream news outlets seemed to have trouble naming the problem. Riots were labelled ‘protests’. Attacking a mosque was called ‘disorder’. And the word Islamophobia? That was nowhere to be found. This week we are joined by Rizwana Hamid, award-winning journalist and the director of The Centre for Media Monitoring - which promotes accurate, fair and responsible reporting of Muslims & Islam. We discuss longstanding Islamophobia in the British media, the treatment of Zarah Sultana MP on Good Morning Britain, and smash tropes and stereotypes including accusations of grooming gangs and extremism. You’ll also hear from Sabah Ahmedi, aka @theyoungimam, who invites those who disagree with or fear his faith to step out of their comfort zone, visit a mosque, and see for themselves. Plus, your round-up of the headlines through a Media Storm lens, including tackling the disinformation surrounding the ‘gender eligibility’ of two Olympic boxers - Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting. Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia) Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire) Assistant Producer: Katie Grant Support Media Storm on Patreon! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. Okay, we're rolling, team. We're rolling. Hello, hello, hello. Media Stormers, we are both back. Tilda, you're back from Honeymoon.

Tell us about it. How was it? How are you? The honeymoon was amazing. I feel like I've had so many homecomings lately, though. I just need to stay put for a while. Actually, no, I say that, but what have I come back to? That's true. Get me out of here again.

Yeah, UK's in chaos. That was the impression I was getting from abroad, seeing it on the news in airports on the way home, the UK is up in flames. Of course that isn't actually the case. What's happening is a tiny minority and I don't know that that's really being conveyed in the news. Totally.

But I think irregardless of it being a tiny minority, which it is and we do have to keep remembering that, it is like truly a terrifying time to be a person of colour in the UK right now. The anxiety levels are very high. Even today we're recording on Wednesday. I'm seeing reports of planned riots by the far right in places like Harrow in London, where I have family. So if you are listening and you are a person of colour, we are thinking about you and we hope that your friends have checked in on you

and we hope your workplace has checked in on you. We're going to get into talking about all of that in this episode and really what's missing from the reporting on these riots. But, while the UK has been tearing itself apart, elsewhere in the world, a student-led movement for human rights in Bangladesh was met with deadly repression before resulting in the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro is still clinging onto power after last week's disputed election. He has vowed to pulverise the latest challenge to his rule. And the US's independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy has confessed to dumping a dead

bear cub in New York Central Park in a bizarre video that solved a 10-year mystery about how a dead bear cub ended up in New York Central Park. Yeah, such a random story. You don't need to make this stuff up. But in media storm news, what

stories caught your eye this week, Helena? Headlines about Imman Khalif and Lynn Uting. Two Olympic boxers, both women of colour from the global south, facing public abuse and questions. about their rights to compete due to apparent disputes about their gender eligibility

and unfounded rumours that they are transgender or male. I've seen this sort of boiling up from a distance for a while, but catch me up. So boxing at the Paris 2024 Olympics has been overshadowed by this row about the eligibility of two female fighters reported to have either high testosterone or XY chromosomes, but here's the thing, no one's really quite sure. This escalated last week when one of them, Imman Khalif, defeated her Italian opponent

within 46 seconds. So just to be really clear, Khalif and You Ting are biologically female and have been their whole lives and have always competed as women? Yes. As the International Olympic Committee spokesperson said,

born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport. I mean, Khalif's dad has actually had to go as far as show her birth certificate to quell these rumours. Hang on. I have seen it reported that Khalif has X, Y, chromosomes.

I listened to a podcast from the right wing news platform unheard yesterday. Yeah, my research takes me down some rabbit holes, but I'm committed, okay? And it repeatedly stated on this podcast as fact that Khalif has X, Y, chromosomes. Is there no evidence for that? Not evidence any self-respecting journalist would rely on. The claims are based on a gender test. The two athletes are said to have failed in 2023 by the discredited International Boxing Association or IBA,

which was stripped of its status as the world's governing body over concerns of corrupt governance, finance and ethics. And I really want to stress this because so many headlines have splashed that the boxers had failed gender eligibility tests and then they failed to report on the corruption of the body that issued the tests. Yeah, there was no mention.

The IBA's attempts to defend its claims have actually just left more questions than answers. They originally said the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination and then they contradicted this at a three-hour press conference on Monday in which IBA President Umar Kremlov said these tests show they have a high level of testosterone like a man. He then proceeded to call Thomas back

the International Olympic Committee President a Sodomite. I mean, it was honestly chaos. Okay, yeah, totally normal sports-related press conference. Completely normal. This is a classic media storm story then because misinformation is impacting minorities, minorities so underrepresented in the media that they don't have a fair chance to defend themselves.

Exactly. So let's give listeners some first-hand testimonies from those involved in the incident so we can make opinions based on listening to the people actually affected. Firstly, Angela Karini, the Italian boxer whose defeat by Khalif triggered all this outrage. Karini has criticised the anger against Khalif, stating, I don't have anything against Khalif. If I were to meet her again, I would embrace her. Secondly, Khalifa Self, who has reminded commentators of the hurtfulness of bullying.

She said it can destroy people, it can kill people's thoughts, spirit and mind. And of course, the incident has triggered a fresh wave of hate against transgender people. Shaila Bela made headlines in 2015 for being the first openly transgender athlete to compete in a US Division I sports team. He points out how women and transgender people's rights are entwined. in this debate. As you're watching the Olympics, I want you to keep a couple things in your brain. Facts are really important. These two women are not transgender, and yet anti-trans rhetoric is making hell for them.

That should remind us that the fight for women's rights and trans rights are innately intertwined. You might notice that both of these women are also women of color, one from Algeria, one from Taiwan. Gender verification testing for women athletes is decades old, and unfortunately disproportionately affects women athletes of color. gets access to womanhood. This type of discrimination, this combination, this combination of racism and misogyny, has a long history, especially in sports. The policing of the women's category through misogyny, racism, and transphobia hurts all women. And none of these women, not Khalif, not Lynn, not Kastor Samenya, not Leah Thomas, not Cici Telfer, none of these women's sports. Transphobia, racism, and misogyny do.

This is a story of bigotry fueled by bad information. And there is another, another story on this theme that's overshadowing everything else in the UK at the moment. The far-right riots. The far-right riots. Bad information is one way to put it. One of the most bizarre things about what's happening is that the riots happening across the UK have no factual basis in the incident that actually triggered them, a stabbing attack that killed three girls in Southport last Monday.

The attack sparked anti-migrant and anti-Muslim riots founded on the 4th. false belief the attacker was a Muslim immigrant. A widespread fake news story actually identified the suspect as Ali al-Shakati, an asylum seeker who arrived by boat, and a figment of someone's imagination. But even after police falsified these reports, and a judge went against convention to name the 17-year-old suspect as Axel Rudu Kibana, a British citizen born in Cardiff to Christian parents, the riots have only been empowered.

It's mad how powerful lies can be. And I think it's worth stressing here that many of the people being sucked into these riots have been lied to. They've been manipulated. This is a key tactic of extremist recruiters using the news to sow hatred. But the reason people are susceptible to these lies

is because they lack honest leaders and educators that they can identify with. And this is in part a mainstream media failure, and I think one that's largely class-based. Most of the media speaks a different language to Britain's working-class communities. I haven't been totally comfortable seeing words like yobbs used to describe everyone demonstrating. These words used in The Guardian and the Times, these are derogatory terms typically used to describe working-class youths. And, of course, many of the root issues behind anti-migrant sentiment are, due to social deprivation and class inequality. I see what you're saying and we know from our

episode speaking to X far right radicals how much of a problem that this is and listeners can find this on last week's feed. But I also think it's important to point out that racism is not a working class trait. It's woven into the fabric of society and it's very prevalent right at the top. Right. And even if many are being manipulated, there aren't many doing the manipulative. manipulation. Sinister, well-paid, well-funded individuals and organisations feeding people lies to turn them into followers. And if you look at their information feeds, it's scary. They're totally unchecked, totally convincing, and give people totally different realities to what the rest of us are seeing. I have scrolled these accounts for hours. There are low-res video clips claiming

to show machete-wielding Muslim men on UK streets and police turning a blind eye. These are unverified, but the mainstream media's failure to address the rumours even to falsify them seems to only be feeding people's convictions that they're real and the mainstream media are part of the conspiracy. One Twitter user posted, Sky News talks about white riots as Muslims walk by with machetes, top class journalism. Right. So this just pushes people further into separate spheres of information. Yeah. But something I've noticed that's kind of remarkable is that these separate spheres are using the same slogans to support totally opposite ideologies. So the far right is now talking about two-tiered policing, claiming police

are only out to get white people, something Nigel Farage blames on the soft policing of the Black Lives Matter protests. Which literally only happened because of the two-tiered policing that's seen countless of innocent black lives lost to police brutality. Exactly. It's sad because different groups are claiming the same injustices as their own and failing to see how it gives them common ground and turning against each other instead. I've seen so many inconsistencies in the analysis. Conservative media that denounced Gaza ceasefire marches as anti-Semitic

are staying silent about Nazi salutes at these riots. And on the flip side, I've heard them complaining about hypocrisy in outraged liberal media that they don't feel criticising. anti-Semitism with the same force. If we're all upset about minority discrimination, why are we fighting each other? I mean, it's a good point. It's like what we think has to be determined by partisanship.

And our media is so partisan. We have to try and bridge these gaps to listen to and empathise with each other and focus not on ideology but on people, real people with real experiences. Which is why last week on Media Storm, we heard the grievances of people who have fallen into far-right radicalisation,

loss of community, social and economic hardship, and fears around cultural identity. And it's why this week we'll hear from those suffering their wrath, Muslim people, and we'll hear how the media has fled them to the wolves. We'll actually talk about the word so many journalists and politicians have been afraid to say this week,

Islamophobia. Islamists are now in charge of Britain. You literally had somebody chanting al-Aqabbar of Oxford Street. I've been followed home with a man in one of those Afghan culpals hats chuntering away in some language. Why is there such controversy around calling it Islamophobic? Why is it so hard to use that word?

Welcome to MediaStorm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Mallinson and I'm Helena Wadia. This week's Media Storm. Bigotry and bad information. Islamophobia in the news. When you support Movember, you're not just fundraising. You're showing up for the men you love. Your dad, your brother, your partner, your friends.

It isn't just a men's issue. It's a human one. That's why Movember exists to change the face of men's health. From mental health and suicide prevention to prostate and testicular cancer research and early detection, Movember is tackling the biggest health issues facing men today. Join the movement and donate now at Movember.com Welcome to the MediaStorm Studio. Joining us today is the Director for the Center for Media Monitoring,

which promotes fair, accurate and responsible reporting about Muslims and Islam. This follows a 30-year career as an award-winning journalist across print, film, TV, and radio, including at outlets like BBC News and Channel 4. We are honored to be joined today by journalist Riswana Hamid. being here. Thank you for inviting me. Helena, you've met Rizwana before. I have, yes. So I actually found out about Rizwana when I was at

the evening standard. I think it must have been before you joined, Matilda, I'm not sure. Yeah, or I was just skiving. Maybe you were skiving, I don't know. But Rizwana actually came in to our offices to deliver a training about responsible reporting about Muslims and Islam. That was

before Media Storm was even conceived as an idea, but I remember thinking how important it was and how brilliant the training was. I mean, to honestly, you've been in the back of my mind as a media storm guest for a while, so I'm very glad to have you here. Oh, thank you for having me. Do you still do those trainings in newsrooms? Yeah, I know we do both newsrooms and we go into universities to try and kind of capture tomorrow's journalists as well to better inform them before they get out into the field. It's great you're getting into the newsrooms to do these

trainings. Do you feel like they're taking on board what you're saying after you've left? You know what? Sorry. The face, I'm sorry. It's one step forward, two steps back. But quite honestly, you know, before October 7th, we really thought that we'd made some progress because we've got the kind of relationships now where we can kind of pick up the phone or email and editor directly whenever we come across something that's either inaccurate or misleading and, you know, things get changed.

But post-October the 7th, coverage was so dire and so. biased that we just feel like we've gone we've gone backwards when it comes to online news almost 60% of the stories around Muslims and Islam are negative in broadcast it's almost 50%, you know over a third misrepresent or generalise about Muslims and Islam and unfortunately the theme under which we're covered is that of extremism and and terrorism and so it's a very distorted image of who Muslims are and what the religion is. Today we want to speak about the riots that we have seen break out across the country and it seems that rioters leapt at the first opportunity to attack Muslims following an event,

the stabbing in Southport that had nothing to do with Muslims or Islam. They were chanting slogans of, you know, we want our country back and England till I die and save our kids and moths were vandalised and hotels that were housing asylum seekers were set alight. Rioters stopping cars, inspecting drivers and asking them, are you white, are you English before letting them pass? I mean, would you go as far as to say that the press's role in creating negative impressions of Muslims

contributed to this violence, is complicit in this violence? The drip-drip narratives that come not just off the press, but what politicians spout over the years has given carte blanche to people to be Islamophobic and not be held to account. And the previous government, the conservative government, never acknowledged that Islamophobia existed. They've never adopted a definition of it. Even when Tory party member has made Islamophobic statements, they've never come out and said, this is Islamophobic. The narrative, I think, since, 9-11 that has been out in the public domain, you know, tropes like Islam is a threat to the

West, that Islamic values aren't compatible with Western values, that Muslims are terrorist, you know, Muslims are misogynistic and all these tropes. And whereas they existed on the dark corners of the web, maybe a decade ago, on far-right platforms, we've seen those slowly being mainstreamed. I agree that we're seeing extremism come into the mainstream. I mean, there's a difference between having concerns or fears even around immigration and hating or fearing migrants. The former is a political position or an opinion.

The latter is a preconception about a group of people. It's bigotry. But I think that this is being like legitimized repeatedly by the mainstream media. We've seen hotels, housing asylum seekers, attempted to be set on fire and that referred to as a protest in the press at the moment. So looking at how the press is reporting on the current disorder, do you see language, double standards, headlines that to you are evidence of Islamophobia

in the coverage of what's happening at the moment? On the night, I think after a few hours, Merseyside police actually confirmed that the instigators were members of the English Defence League and far-right instigators. And yet, none of the headlines had any of the words far-right or EDL in them. In fact, you had to go three-quarters of the way down

to find those terms being used. So a kind of a whitewashing in a way. The other thing is, for example, the Times ran a headline saying violence breaks out at Southport Mosque. Right. The assumption there is that the violence was being perpetrated by people in the mosque. These kind of headlines that include the word mosque or Muslim

and have omission of the actual perpetrators actually, you know, leads the reader into thinking that Muslims were at the centre of this violence. I mean, we had so many examples. Sky News, Southport, police officers injured in disorder outside mosque. I would also like to add to your list of examples there the difference in how these so-called pro-Palestinian protests that we've been seeing pretty much every Saturday since, you know, the events in Gaza have been unfolding.

They were labelled as hate marches and as dangerous for Jewish people, despite the fact that many Jewish people march weekly, yet this language failed to appear really in the early coverage of these riots. And the other thing that's really interesting is the reluctance to use the word extremist as well. If these were Muslims on the street, the word Islamists or extremists would have been at the forefront of headlines. There's a willingness to qualify one group of people as being extremists and a reluctance to label other people as extremists.

And of course, the vast majority that have kind of jumped on the bandwagon. may not be extremists, but we know that the ideology that is spurring this on is an extremist ideology. It's a racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic ideology and call it that. We want to talk about those words that the mainstream media have failed to use. Islamophobia is one of them. I feel like racism is another one of them. A really stark example of the media kind of hand-wringing over whether or not this is racism or whether or not this is Islamophobia was seen recently on Good Morning Britain.

Zara Sultana, the Labour MP for Coventry South, was on the morning new show on Monday to discuss the far-right violence and what it means for communities of colour and specifically Muslim communities. Zara Sultana is a Muslim herself. In this clip, she's being interviewed by the presenters Ed Balls and Kate Garraway

and also present is Andrew Pearce, daily mail editor and Gbe News. presenter. Let's hear what happened. The discussion around immigration, you don't see that playing a role in what we're seeing, descend across the country. You don't think there's any complicity in that at all. I think if you fail to control and manage immigration properly, then things go wrong. So the language that protesters, rather than far right mobs and... You believe in controlling and managing immigrants. The language that they're using are stop the boats.

They are telling people like me to go home. If we look at the language used by policy, and the language used by these people in these streets, you will see a direct correlation. But you've moved from attacking Andrew to attacking me. So let me have a go. The question, McCabe asked me about language, if that's okay. Language matters. What you can't do is just spray out attacks on all of us

and then not have any comeback. You didn't answer Andrew's question. No, she did. You attacked me. I said, I wrote an article in which I said it was important to control and manage migration. You agree with that. What I'm saying is when we're talking about migration,

I'm asking you a question, you've got to answer it. I am, I am true in it. Do you agree in controlling and managing migration? I think we need to talk about migration in a way that humanises people who have to migrate and the levels it has stooped has meant that people are setting fire to hotels that are housing asylum seekers. When we look at the impact of language used, we need to look at how it affects people in our communities and in our streets.

And I think we need to really be careful about the language we use. I'm asking a really simple question. Do you think it's important for governments to control and manage migration? I mean, the first point that I really want to make straight away is that Zara is the only person of color on that panel. She is the only Muslim person on that panel. She is the only person that has lived experience on that panel. And she is being questioned aggressively by an all white panel. I mean, it was horrible to watch.

It is. But it's not surprising, unfortunately, because that has become such a common occurrence. Anyone who tries to introduce the concept of Islamophobia or anyone that tries to give a context or framing to stories, they were just shut down. And here you see Zara Sultana just being shut down, spoken over, sniggered at.

The laughter. literally being treated with disdain. Something that struck me how quick, how easy it is for someone like Ed Bowles to dismiss lived experience. She's sitting there saying people like me are being told, go home. And he's saying, don't you think we need to control immigration? And okay, in this clip, Zara is frustrated and emotional. And a lot of the comments were, you know, who is this angry woman?

Well, she didn't start off angry. No, no, absolutely not. for people in these positions to be dismissed as angry and emotional. I mean, that's a trope for women of colour, black women in particular. Definitely, yeah, you know, angry and aggressive, etc. But Sir Alan Moses was the chair of Ipso, the regulatory body for newspapers. And as he was leaving after his five-year tenureship, he said that in the five years he had found that one of the biggest problems that he had faced

was the coverage of Muslims. I think one of the problems is how little people understand Islam. And I wonder if you could clear something up for people listening because there's videos of defenders of Islam reacting against these riots, coming onto the streets and chanting ala Akbar. And I think a sad thing is that so many British people associate that as a slogan of violence or terrorism. Can you just clear up what that actually means?

I mean, so to be clear, Allah-Wakbar merely means God is great. And it is said by billions of Muslims around the world at least five times a day, because before you start your prayers, you make your intention, and then you say Allah-Wak-Bah. You also say, Allah-Wak-Bah, for example, if, and this is a real case scenario, there were two men in Switzerland walking down the street who hadn't seen each other for 15 years, but they were from the same country and they looked at each other and just went, Allah Wahabur,

which meant what is the chance of us meeting after 15 years on the streets of Geneva? They were arrested by the police for saying Allah Wahbber. So Allah Wahbubr has been appropriated by terrorists as a war cry, but what has happened is that it's been used as clickbait by mainstream media and has been used as shorthand, for terrorism and violence.

And therefore, the British public, of course, associated with violence, whereas the original meaning has nothing to do with violence and the vast majority of people don't use it in that term. I don't know if you see when you're watching images of Gaza

and when a building has been destroyed and there's a human being underneath the rubble and when people are trying to bring out that person. People say Allah Wahbba when they actually get them out and they're alive because again it's just this

exclamation of they've been saved and they just say God is great because they believe that God has intervened and saved them because by all means they should be dead. So can you see how innocent the term Allah Wahabbar actually is and how sinister

it has been made to appear because of of how mainstream media uses it. And I hope just hearing that will just put people at ease because it don't need to be afraid. No, no, not at all. So we've spoken about, you know, the coverage of these riots. We've spoken about the background of this negative coverage of Muslims and of Islam,

how the press contributes and create that. I wonder if we could hone in on a few examples that will be familiar to anyone who has consumed the mainstream media. a trope that seems to be repeated is about grooming gangs. Now this narrative that paints brown men only as involved in grooming gangs came to a head in April 2023 when the then Home Secretary Suella Braverman made a false claim that almost all, that's quoted, almost all those involved in grooming gangs were British Pakistani men.

The false ascitation was made in an article for the mail on Sunday but it was only retracted six months later. While the retraction was tucked away in the pages of the newspaper, the then-home secretary's article received significant national and almost unchallenged coverage. The Centre for Media Monitoring led the charge, really, on getting this correction. But was the damage already done? Of course it was. We know that.

But this trope of grooming gangs goes back, precedes Suella Brotherman's, comments made in the Mail on Sunday. The fact is grooming gangs is not even a legal term. You cannot be charged on the grounds of being a grooming gang. So it's a manufactured label that is used exclusively for Pakistani or Muslim men. Following Suella Braveman's article in the Mail on Sunday, the following day on Monday in the Mail online, there was another story, high-profile story where 21 white men and women were charged. But the term used there was child sex ring. The word grooming gang never appeared.

But this crime of child molestation, organized crime, child molestation, is it a crime in which brown men are overrepresented statistically? No, I mean, the Home Office statistics themselves show that the vast majority of people who perpetrate such crimes are white men. So Suella Breivman was going against her own home office ministries data. What's very interesting is there's a direct correlation between what is said in the media and hate crimes. So after Boris Johnson compared Muslim women who wear the Nicarb to letterboxes and bag robbers, hate crimes went up by over 300% in the following week.

Similarly, after the Christchurch attacks, even though Muslims were the victims there, you know, when Brent and Tarrant attacked two mosques and killed over 50 people in New Zealand, hate crimes went up again, I think it was over 500%. The reason being, people said, well, you deserve this. One, because you're terrorists and two because you're groomers. The correlation is undeniable, just literally looking at what's happened. today, you know, we have had years and years now of enraged daily mail headlines in all caps saying Calais, send the army, migrants, spark housing crisis, bullshit. One million more migrants

are on the way. Foreign workers get three and four new jobs. Bullshit, check the study. 100,000 illegal stopped at the UK. And then you have protesters, rioters taking to the streets and setting fire to hotels, housing asylum seekers. When is the media going to take responsibility? When it comes to sources, we find that establishment newspapers and broadcasters that hold quite high standards in terms of journalism are quite willing to rely on unreliable sources when it comes to Muslims and Islam. So, for example, both the Telegraph and the Times ran a story where they targeted a scout leader that was part of a mosque in South London. London and ran a story saying that he and the mosque were linked to extremism and that the police were investigated to them. The source of that story was the Henry Jackson Society, a right-wing think tank, which is known for its anti-Muslim and Islamophobic content and reports. Yet the Times

and Telegraph believed them, ran the story, ended up paying huge libel costs because it was a false story. Similarly, when it came to the reporting on Gaza, the reliance on Israeli sources, even when they had been proved to be false, whether that was the story of the 40 beheaded babies or where the IDF go under a hospital in Gaza and see a piece of paper on the wall, point to it and say, this is evidence that hostages were held here because this is a rotor. It turns out to be a calendar written in Arabic, despite a series of false stories and manufactured stories by Israeli sources, during the Gaza coverage, they were believed and they weren't challenged, and they were allowed to be regurgitated on flagship programs like question time or politics today and, you know, news night. And you just think, where is that due diligence?

on the part of journalists. And you know what? I rather wonder whether this episode has been a bit of a wake-up call for some papers, pulling it back to the Southport stabbing and the riots. At the beginning, mainstream conservative outlets were very gentle in their coverage of the extremist writers,

but that has changed. We have now seen outlets like The Telegraph and the Spectator that had quite apologetic language at the beginning, denouncing the hardline extremism of what's happening now. However, these are not the only outlets that right-wing audiences now rely on for their information. We have had the rise of alt-right US-styled opinion-based news platforms like GB News. When we talked about grooming gangs, false information about grooming gangs last year,

your organisation found that the news outlet that covered it the most was G.B. News, more than double the coverage of all other outlets put together, and yet they provided the least context. Only 7% of their reports even mentioned the Home Office report on the topic. So what is the impact of these new style alt-right platforms parading as news platforms being on Islamophobia? I mean, they fuel hate, they encourage division, but they're being allowed the platform and unfortunately they may have small figures when it comes to their television audiences but their outreach online and on social media is vast. And looking at those social media platforms, X is the place where the original disinformation spread that triggered

these riots, the rumour that the Southport murderer suspect was a migrant and Muslim. X is the is the place where these riots have been coordinated and live streamed. X is the place where Elon Musk, the man who runs it all, declared civil war in the UK to be inevitable, probably one of the most inflammatory and extremist posts of this whole episode. And we've been looking at X and it is scary to see how the people following these information sources are being fed totally warped versions of reality. So a question we would love to ask is how do we reach those people who are seeing that and show them that Islam is not something they have to fear. The problem is that on social media,

it's been proven that people are in their own echo chambers. So social media isn't going to be the way to do it. It's going back to the old-fashioned human contact and relationships. And we saw that in Southport, in the aftermath of those horrific attacks following the horrendous murder of those three people, poor children and their families, the next day the community coming together, helping the mosque clear up the damage that was there. It's about getting to know your neighbour. It's about getting

to know those communities. It's about not othering people. What Muslims have been saying for a long time is, we are being targeted. And it's very frightening. This can lead to atrocities being committed on a scale that I don't think we've ever seen. fact that British Muslims and migrants and people of color do not feel safe in Britain today. I mean, that's a travesty. And that's not a manufactured fear. You know, that's a real fear. When you look at religiously motivated hate crimes, close to half, are against Muslims. And those are the Home Office's reports year on, year out. It's Muslims that are being targeted, but Muslims have been heard because Muslim equals terrorist. Muslim is not a victim. Muslim is not a law-abiding

citizen of Britain. Muslim is not somebody who contributes to Britain as a whole. Muslim is not somebody who is a British citizen. Muslim is an extremist and a terrorist and therefore a legitimate target and that's what's happened with the riots. They have been legitimate targets in the eyes of those that are perpetrating this. And unfortunately, you know, the media and politicians are partly to blame and have contributed to what we've seen played out on the streets of Britain this last week.

It's bringing tears to my eyes because it's real, you know, ordinary people who just live their life. are being attacked, their homes are being vandalised. People are out thinking twice before they go to the mosque. Parents are not letting their kids out. They're not letting them go to, you know, summer schools. You wouldn't have thought that you would have seen this kind of on the streets of Britain.

Before we let you leave, can you just share with listeners, anything you have to plug, and where they can follow you in your work? They can follow us on Twitter at CFMMUK. If you go on to our website, www.cfmm.org.org and go to our resources page, you'll see a lot of the reports that we've published and, you know, kind of support and donate and let us know if you see things that you find problematic that, you know, are complainable or inaccurate or misleading because, you know, it's important to hold the media to account. The Hulu original series Murdoch Death and the Family dives into secrets, deception, murder, and the fall of a powerful dynasty. Inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast, this series brings the drama to the screen like never before. Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

Watch the Hulu original series Murdoch Death in the Family, streaming October 15th on Disney Plus. Welcome back. Now, the theme of today's episode is how bigotry comes from bad information. Yes, people are rightfully angry right now. Hardship, inequality and failing social infrastructure are real issues. But these issues have been turned into hate against Muslims by lie spread by extremist recruiters and allowed to spread by mainstream media that profits from fear and chaos. Last week, we heard from people who'd been radicalized by the far right about the lies they were told about Islam. So this week, we asked Sabah Ahmadi, aka the young Imam, to address some of the myths about his faith. The first misconception about Islam that I want to address is the idea that is that.

is in some way an inherently violent religion. It's sad that people have that idea of Islam. The motto of my community, the Hamid Muslim community, is love for all and hatred for none, and it's a motto which I try and live by every single day. Islam teaches, in fact, that to kill it innocent is akin to king the whole of mankind. Nowhere does it say go on London Bridge

and commit horrendous, horrific acts of terror. And unfortunately, that is all people know, because when they turn the TV on, all they see is someone being called an Islamist terrorist. Someone who goes out and kills innocent people. How can you call them an Islamic group? That's not what my faith teaches. That's why we open the doors to our mosques. We contact the media to invite them to our events to show them what the true Islam teaches. Another trope that we hear being repeated by right-wing or anti-Islamic.

commentators is that Islam is in some way incompatible with quote western values so as a British Imam what's your response to that look to me what being British means yeah is equality and justice for everyone for me being British doesn't mean sitting down and eat in skones jam and whatever right sipping tea that's not what being British to me means being British to me means equality and justice that's what Islam teaches Islam teaches, part of your faith is loyalty to your nation. We have youth organisations across the world. And in those meetings, we recite a pledge.

And part of that pledge we say, we'll sacrifice our life, time and wealth for the sake of our faith, country and nation. So not only are we showing our loyalty to our faith, but also to the country in which we live in, then yeah, you can't be Muslim and be British. we do see radicalisation happening within the Muslim community in the UK we also see it within other communities so as an imam do you ever encounter within your mosque people who you worry are proving susceptible to extremist views and if so how do you deal with that I'm very proud to say this but I've now come across a single person of our community

who has these extreme ideologies or thoughts or they feel like they've been radicalised. And the reason for that is because from very young age, we teach them the true teachings of Islam. Like I said, love for humanity, love for their fellow brethren who they live with. We visit care homes. We feed the homeless, those who are struggling. We give food to food banks. And children are also part of that.

Because once young people feel like they're positive members of the community and they're valued and they feel like they're giving back to society. There's no room for them to go and hurt innocent people. There's no room for them to go and pick up arms and do shocking things on our streets. I'm going to ask you a difficult question. You do have terrorist organizations that classify themselves as Islam

and that use or misuse the Quran in order to create a culture. of violence and of extremism. Do you have a view why that is happening within Islamic communities or why Islam is being used in that way? I think comments like women in the headscarves, a letterboxes and bank robbers, I feel that glass and stones being thrown out Muslim women and Muslim men doesn't make Muslims feel like their pop society.

It's sad. That doesn't mean that they go to a different country and join these fringe organisations like ISIS and Boko Haram. It's totally out of order. But my members of the community feel like they're set to one side and their religion is tarnished in the media. Of course, it upsets them. But the way you deal with your frustration and anger is by writing and using your voice as a tool to make change. That's how you create real change, long-lasting change. when you display through your own character the true teachings of what your faith teaches you as an individual. And on the flip side, do you ever fear terrorist attacks targeting your mosque or members of your community?

I personally do receive threats and nasty and harsh comments to all my parents, my family and my wife and kids. It's real. It happens. someone said stop this dog from barking so yeah that is there what could we be doing as a society to foster a more sophisticated more nuanced understanding of Islam I think you being here and doing this podcast is a true example of how we create a society of understanding of acceptance and I think if someone invites you to a synagogue or a church or a mosque

which might take you out of your comfort zone a little bit it, maybe we try it, because yeah, it might be different. I won't have a beard, I might be a different skin tone to someone else. But that doesn't mean we don't bleed red, all of us. That was Sabah Amadi, aka the young Imam, and you can follow him on Instagram at The Young Imam. Now, what we want you to take home today is really what we should have been talking about in the aftermath of the Southport stabbing, had the far right not hijacked it.

There's a lot we don't know about the Southport stabbing, certainly not that Islam had anything to do with it. What we do know is that this was an occurrence of male violence against women and girls. We need to question why the narrative has shifted away from the murders of three young girls and why known misogynists like Lawrence Fox and Andrew Tate have been allowed to parade as protectors of women and girls in their violent hate cries against Muslims and migrants. What should have followed Southport was a media spotlight on protecting women and girls.

Instead, that has fallen into the shadows. So to end, we're spotlighting a story breaking today, but that's been lost amid the rabble. A freedom of information request by the Four Babies Sake Trust has revealed nearly 200,000 babies a year are present at police callouts for domestic abuse in England. Here's the CEO, Lauren Seeger Smith, about the findings. The For Babies Sake Trust works with babies and families impacted by domestic abuse,

and we're here to break cycles of domestic abuse. So what we see with many of our parents is that 70% of them have cycles of trauma and abuse within their families. And so we wanted to really understand what was happening out there with babies. Domestic abuse affects things like baby's birth weight. It impacts people's ability to form relationships and so we know that growing up with domestic abuse that's absolutely catastrophic for society

and is a huge public health issue. What we would like to see is much more time taken to listen to the voices of parents and the voices of children around what their experiences have been and what they need. We can't have quick fixes around this. It takes deep therapeutic relationships to bring really lasting change.

Breaking cycles of abuse takes a long time and so we really need to take a different approach where we're not just reacting to the outcome of abuse but we're really looking at how do we get to the root cause and break those cycles of abuse and I think what we've seen in the last week are very public acts of violence and we've seen children present in those very public acts of violence

what we don't see so often is what goes on behind closed doors and what I would just say to listeners is it will be happening in some of your homes please please reach out to support do talk to someone about what you're going through because help is out there Thank you for listening. Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcast

so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helen Awadier and Matilda Mallinson with music by Samfire.

Our assistant producer is Katie Grant. You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helena Wadia and follow the show via at MediaStormPod. Listen and hit follow on Spotify.