New victims, same mistakes

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Wednesday October 15 2014
Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism at City University, compares the miscarriages of justice fuelled by anti-Irish prejudice in the 70s with the present day experiences of British Muslims in a column in the Guardian.
In a column reminiscent of an earlier contribution by fellow columnist Owen Jones, Greenslade reflects on the trials of the Birmingham Six, the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four who were wrongly convicted for pub bombings in the city in 1975 and the Guildford pub bombings in 1974 respectively.
Greenslade also notes the case of Judith Ward, who spent time in Ireland during the 1970s, and was wrongly convicted for the bombings of Euston Station in 1973 and the National Defence College and a coach on the M62 in 1974.
Greenslade draws a comparison with those cases and some of the media coverage of last week on the arrests of five men in London in connection with a ‘suspected terrorist plot’ allegedly linked to ISIS.
Greenslade highlights how the headlines in the papers last Wednesday were unequivocal in their representation of events stating; “Jihadi plot to attack UK smashed (Daily Mail), “MI5 smash British ‘Isil terror plot'” (Daily Telegraph), “British medical student arrested on terror charges ‘may have just returned from Somalia” (The Independent), and “MI5 nab surgeon” (The Sun).
The following day, The Sun followed up with a splash headline “Terror suspect tweets: Oi lads… I smell war!” in relation to the arrest of one of the five men, Tarik Hassane.
In the same manner, the Independent and Channel 4 News reported the tweet was sent “hours before the raid” on his flat.
However, Greenslade raises his concerns about the “sensationalism of the coverage surrounding his arrest” noting the contribution of an Islamic blog, Islam21c, on the tweet, its provenance and context. The blog notes claims the tweet was taken out of context as friends reported that it referred to a ‘bunch of rowdy girls’ who were bickering on the social media site.
These suspicions were similarly but briefly acknowledged in the Daily Mail and by Channel 4 News and an article in the Guardian also drew attention to past terror arrests which were “based on intelligence that turned out to be inaccurate”.
Greenslade ponders the prospect that “the errors committed against the Irish in the 1970s are being replayed with a new set of victims, British Muslims, in 2014.”
Greenslade is not the first to discern similarities between experiences of anti-Irish prejudice and Islamophobia. Earlier this year, Owen Jones also made a similar comparison between the miscarriages of justice experiences by Irish and Muslim communities as he reflected upon the case of Binyam Mohamed.
Owen also drew a comparison on the discriminatory treatment of Muslims in extradition cases arguing that while a white Briton, Gary MacKinnon, was exempted from being extradited due to his medical condition, Asperger’s Sydrome, Syed Talha Ahsan, who suffers from the same, was shown no such pity by the Home Secretary, Theresa May.
Moreover, research conducted by Professor Mary Hickman, inter alia. into representations of Irish and Muslim communities in public discourse during the Irish ‘Troubles’ and post 9/11 respectively, infers that one of the strongest similarities in the public discourses within both eras is the representation of Irish and Muslim communities as being under suspicion of harbouring or supporting ‘extremists’.
The report concludes that “the representations of the Irish in the past have set a precedent for the treatment of Muslims in the current period… Muslim communities today are subjected to a similar process of constructions as ‘suspect’ as Irish communities in the previous era. Few lessons appear to have been learnt from the period of ‘The Troubles’.”
The report further states, “It appears from our research that a major concern for public authorities should be to ensure that security policies do not isolate and threaten communities and do not undermine their trust in state institutions and their sense of belonging. We have indicated that there are many more continuities between the two eras of political violence, particularly in counter-terrorism policies, than politicians and policy makers readily admit. A more successful policy would involve learning from this past.”
If media coverage of last week is anything to go by, that analysis appears to be as valid now as when the research was published in 2011.