Media Failure: NPR’s Source on Mosque Murders Can’t Recall People Ever Being Murdered in a Mosque Before | FAIR

NPR’s Source on Mosque Murders Can’t Recall People Ever Being Murdered in a Mosque Before | FAIR

NPR and other Mainstream Media once again fail to fairly represent the enormity
of Islamophobia and hatred of Islam and of all Muslims.

In the NPR report on the mass shooting at the Mosque in Christchurch New Zealand
they appeared to accept the erroneous claim of a spokesperson for the ADL Anti-Defamation League that there had never been a mass killing or shooting in a Mosque anywhere in recent memory.

So even some supposedly Human Rights groups either are unaware of anti-Muslim hate speech
and the murder of innocent Muslims or they choose to downplay any form of hatred of Muslims .
But especially since 9/11 Islamophobia and the groups and individuals fueling Islamophobia have been on the rise but the media and I think most Westerners do not want to face this fact or just don't care .

This type of attitude of indifference and ignorance of the wide spread violent attacks on Muslims
is one way for this hatred and violence to grow unchecked .
So we are supposed to accept that certain forms of hate or various religions or races exist
such as Anti-semitism while Islamophobia is not a real issue these are just the acts of a few unrelated individuals ie Lone Wolfs , Mentally ill men and not part of an ongoing systemic hatred fueled by Western Governments and the Western Media ???

Article from FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting :

"MARCH 16, 2019
NPR’s Source on Mosque Murders Can’t Recall People Ever Being Murdered in a Mosque Before
JIM NAURECKAS

"...On NPR‘s Morning Edition (3/15/19), Jonathan Greenblatt, the director of the Anti-Defamation League, was interviewed by host David Greene about the mass murder of 49 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Asked by Greene “how common” it is for online hate speech to turn into a “mass shooting this terrible,” Greenblatt responded:

Well, I think this act of violence really doesn’t have a precedent as far as we know, murdering people in a mosque like this, and the social media dimension is something new. However, hate speech online is an increasing problem.

Greene didn’t react on the air to Greenblatt’s claim that there’s never been a mass murder in a mosque before. But of course, this is far from the first Islamophobic murder to take place in a mosque.

A little more than two years ago, on January 29, 2017, six people were killed by a gunman at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City in Canada. Last year, covering the sentencing of murderer Alexandre Bissonnette, the New York Times (5/5/18) reported that

more than a year after the Jan. 29, 2017, rampage, Canada is still grappling with Mr. Bissonnette’s crime. It shocked the nation and underlined the perils of Islamophobia and the far right in a country that prides itself on its multiculturalism and tolerance.

Similar to accounts of the Australian immigrant charged in the Christchurch murders, the Quebec City shooter was described by the Times as “drawn to far-right ideas, fueled by the election of Mr. Trump and fanned by fears that immigrants threatened Quebec’s identity.”

NYT: Quebec Mosque Shooter Was Consumed by Refugees, Trump and Far Right
A year after a mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque, the New York Times (5/5/18) reported on how Quebec’s identity was shaken.

Another famous mosque attack—as Mondoweiss (3/15/19) pointed out in a post on the NPR interview—occurred in Hebron in the Occupied West Bank on February 25, 1994, in the Cave of the Patriarchs (Extra!, 5–6/94). Baruch Goldstein, a member of the Israeli army reserves, entered the site sacred to both Judaism and Islam and opened fire while Muslims were praying there, killing 29 before he himself was killed. This act of terrorism still casts a shadow over Israeli politics, as Haaretz (2/26/19) recently reported in an article about a Knesset debate over Goldstein’s burial place:

The killer’s grave has become over the years a pilgrimage site for extremist Jews who support him, and a shrine to his memory was set up next to his tomb.

Perhaps the biggest mosque-related mass murder occurred in the Philippines on September 24, 1974, when some 1,500 members of the Moro people were rounded up by the Philippine army and killed in a mosque in the village of Malisbong.

Other anti-Muslim mosque attacks include the 25 worshipers killed on October 11, 2017, at a mosque in Kembe, Central African Republic; the 20 people slaughtered at the Han Tha mosque in Taungoo, Myanmar, in May 2001; and the 147 victims of the Kattankudy mosque massacre in Sri Lanka on August 3, 1990.

Mosques have also been frequent targets of Islamic extremists, particularly Salafist militants such as ISIS attacking Shia and Sufi religious centers. The deadliest terrorist attack in Egyptian history took place on November 24, 2017, at the al-Rawda mosque in the Sinai Peninsula, when some 40 attackers, suspected of being affiliated with ISIS, killed 311 Sufi worshipers (New York Times, 12/1/17).

That none of this was recalled, either by the host of Morning Edition or the director of a group that presents itself as a “global leader in exposing extremism” with a mission “to secure justice and fair treatment for all,” is a testament to the failure of our information systems to give due weight to violence against Muslims—and the consequent dangerous impoverishment of our collective memory..."