The Daily Telegraph, a Sydney based tabloid newspaper published by Nationwide News Pty Ltd has been widely condemned for its Islamophobic headline “ALLAH AK BARRED!” appearing against a background of flag waving ISIS gunmen on its front page published on Thursday 9 August 2018, while reporting on “Five Aussie terrorists stripped of their citizenship.”
The headline is a highly insensitive and malicious distortion of the Islamic invocation “Allah Akbar” meaning “God is Great” widely used during Islamic prayers and at various other occasions in times of stress or as an expression of joy.
The continuing exclusive full story by Sharri Markson & Jack Houghton on pages 8 and 9 appears with yet another provocative headline “EXILED TO AN ISLAMIC FATE” with photos of the five people stripped of their Australian citizenship against a background of guns, barbed wire and Arabic writing.
Dr Anne Fairbairn AM, grand daughter of an Australian Prime Minister, a celebrated poet and regular columnist of AMUST was highly stressed by the sight of the headline and called AMUST office early on Thursday morning drawing attention to the offensive headline.
The Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) in its Media statement issued on Thursday 9 August has condemned the choice of words used in the headline that it considers an attack on Islam and demonising the Muslim community.
The statement reads:
“The Australian National Imams Council and the Australian Muslim community are extremely outraged and offended over the disrespect portrayed by the choice of title and wording in this article.
While The Australian National Imams Council and the Australian Muslim community respect and advocate for freedom of speech, this freedom must not be exploited in disrespecting any community or religion and further demonising and unfairly targeting specific communities.”
ANIC has demanded an immediate removal of the headline and an apology from The Daily Telegraph for causing offence to the Muslim community in what it considers an “ongoing campaign against Muslims and Islam” by The Daily Telegraph that leads to incitement and hatred against the Australian Muslim community.
The President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC), Dr Rateb Jneid has also called for the retraction of the offensive headline and issue of an apology saying, “This headline is inappropriate in the extreme and media outlets should be held to account for such irresponsible practices. It just represents another example of the continued attack on our religion from some sections of the media.”
Muslim Australians have been outraged by the offensive headlines and defamatory articles continually published by The Daily Telegraph and there was widespread condemnation of this edition of the tabloid in the social media.
The Daily Telegraph and its publishers have been successfully sued for defamation in the past by the Grand Mufti of Australia as well as the President of ANIC, Sheikh Shady.
However its Islamophobic campaign of defaming Islam and demonising Muslims continues unabated creating disharmony in the otherwise peaceful Australian multicultural community.
This clearly show the standards, that the Daily Telegraph follows to make money and gain readers.
Noble journalism is now getting polluted by some hooligans and vandals who are coming in this field for some seriously sinister agenda to defame one particular community. God knows what benefits it will bring to the community at large? It’s not gonna pay people’s rising mortgages or fix bad government policies but definitely it will divert people’s anger, frustration and attention from banks and government to the Muslims.
Readers have a responsibility too, to find out the truth.
Thanks to the readers like Dr Anne Fairbairn AM for doing the right thing.
Yes, I think we all have a responsibility in what news is spread, however I think there’s a lot of people who don’t trust some parts of the community because of the actions from small percentage. People tend to remember the bad things and not the good that these communities do, perhapes in stead of being judgmental about headlines that clearly express the feelings of a large number of the community because it feels as though you’re not doing enough to make your community respect the AUSTRALIAN way of life. We need to weed out the minority of bad in all areas and I don’t think a headline matters, people with half a brain knows that there is more to it than just a headline,. In this case the headline was not out to defame or ridicule anyone but the perpetrators. Stop generalising everything, we’re all sick of it, ln this case, that goes for both sides of the matter at hand.
This is nothing compared to what is happening in Sri Lanka.
About a year back a Buddhist Monk gave a racist speech against Islaam at Ambalngoda and that same evening began the usual racism by the Buddhists by burning a Mosque, looting Muslim owned shops and damaging houses.
The very next day the government began to rebuild the mosque and other buildings and shops.
Can the government at that time in power state that they did not provoke the Buddhist monk.
During the time of Prophet Muammad, [may Allaah bless him grant him peace} the night before the Batlle of Badr on the 17th fast in the Month of Ramazan prayed to Allaah Almighty for help.. The Muslims were outnumbered 3:1
After the victory a revelation was revealed -“And you did not kill them, but it was Allah who killed them. And you threw not, [O Muhammad], when you threw, but it was Allah who threw that He might test the believers with a good test. Indeed, Allah is Hearing and Knowing.” Al-Qur’aan Ch.7 Vr.17