BBC Girl’s Hour faces firestorm of criticism over ‘hostile’ interview with Muslim chief

That is unbelievable. 100 “outstanding figures” are enraged as a result of a BBC interviewer requested the Muslim Council of Britain’s Zara Mohammed some robust questions. A lot of them little question signed on to this as a result of they assume that Muslims are subjected to widespread discrimination and harassment in Britain and everywhere in the West, and so ought to be given particular consideration. However the truth that there may be any outrage at throughout this is a sign of how far that assumption is from the reality. Zara Mohammed just isn’t downtrodden; she is privileged. That’s why there may be this outcry: Emma Barnett dared to problem a privileged particular person whom she ought to have regarded with reverence and handled with child gloves.

Word that the opponents of jihad violence and Sharia oppression are routinely subjected to “hostile” remedy on the BBC and all over the place else within the worldwide institution media. I personally know that once I obtain a media inquiry from an institution outlet such because the BBC or the New York Instances that the inquirer’s intent is to make me, and opposition to jihad terror basically, look as dangerous as doable. Nobody raises any uproar about it, both, and I wouldn’t count on them to. However the dichotomy exhibits who has the privilege in British society, and everywhere in the West right now, and who doesn’t.

“BBC Girl’s Hour accused of ‘hostile’ interview with Muslim chief,” BBC, February 18, 2021:

A BBC Radio four Girl’s Hour interview with the primary lady to guide the Muslim Council of Britain has been criticised for being “strikingly hostile”.

Greater than 100 politicians, writers and different outstanding figures have signed an open letter complaining about Zara Mohammed’s “mistreatment” on the present.

It stated host Emma Barnett “appeared intent on re-enforcing damaging and prejudicial tropes” about Islam.

A BBC spokesperson stated the company would reply “in the end”.

The letter’s signatories embrace Conservative peer Baroness Warsi, Labour MPs Diane Abbott and Naz Shah, journalist Afua Hirsch, Rizzle Kicks’ Jordan Stephens and the Muslim Council of Britain’s founding secretary basic Sir Iqbal Sacranie.

“The BBC wants to handle its engagement with and illustration of Muslim ladies,” it stated.

Particularly, it took difficulty with Barnett for “persistently” asking what number of feminine imams there are in Britain.

“Regardless of Mohammed’s repeated claims that non secular adjudication was not throughout the parameters of her position main a civil society organisation, Barnett requested the query about feminine imams 4 instances, every time interrupting Mohammed’s reply,” it stated.

The interview “mirrored the fashion and tone of an accountability interview with a politician, relatively than authentically recognising and fascinating in what this represented for British Muslim ladies”, the letter added….

The programme later deleted the clip from Twitter, nonetheless, saying it “ought to have included extra of the radio interview to offer full context of the dialogue”.