Recent judgments by the Press Complaints Commission

Inayat Bunglawala, ENGAGE vs Daily Star

Hizb ut-Tahrir vs The Sunday Times

Metro, ‘Girl of 8 suicide bomber’

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Complainant Name:

Resolved – Inayat Bunglawala v Daily Star

Clauses Noted: 1

Publication: Daily Star

Complaint:

Inayat Bunglawala, Advisor on Research and Policy for ENGAGE, complained that an article misleadingly claimed there had been a ban on the sale of The Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal badges in areas of Britain with high numbers of Muslim occupants. He said that – while in certain areas the reporters may not have been able to find poppies for sale – the fact that sellers had chosen not to stock the badges did not necessarily represent an overt ban.

Resolution:

The complaint was resolved when a clarification was published on page 2 of the newspaper in the following terms, headlined “No poppies”:

“Further to our article of November 6, ‘Poppies Banned in Terror Hotspots’, we have been asked to make clear that there has been no overt ban on the sale of poppies in certain English cities. Our survey revealed that poppies were just not available for sale in areas of Leeds, Bradford, Dewsbury, Derby, Birmingham and Leicester.”

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Complainant Name:

Resolved – Hizb ut-Tahrir v The Sunday Times

Clauses Noted: 1

Publication: The Sunday Times

Complaint:
Taji Mustafa of Hizb ut-Tahrir complained that an article about the organisation contained a number of inaccuracies.

Resolution:

The complaint was resolved when the newspaper published the following correction in print and online

An opinion piece (The wrong voice for Muslim Britain, News Review, August 5 2007) stated that Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) wants to set up a caliphate in Britain, that it had allowed comments on its website describing the Glasgow airport and Haymarket bomb attacks as a “welcoming treat for the newly formed Brown cabinet”, and that Mohammed Babar, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were members of HuT. In fact, HuT’s publications only call for the re-establishment of the caliphate in the Muslim world and we accept that there were no such comments about the bomb attacks on its website. HuT has always denied that Babar, al-Zarqawi and Mohammed were members of HuT.

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Complainant Name:

Mr Tauseef Zahid

Clauses Noted: 1

Publication: Metro

Complaint:

Mr Tauseef Zahid complained that the newspaper had inaccurately claimed in a headline that a “girl of 8” had been “used as ‘suicide’ bomber”. The text of the article made clear that the US army later gave her age as between 16 and 18. He was also concerned that the article referred to claims that two women with Down’s syndrome had been used as human bombs in Baghdad. These had never been, in his view, corroborated.

Resolution:

The complaint was resolved when the newspaper – which had taken the information used in the headline from an Associated Press bulletin, and included the later American position in the text of the article just before publication – published the following letter from the complainant:

“I am concerned about the coverage of the ongoing situation in Iraq, and that some of the press are involved in pro-war propaganda. For example, in May, Metro ran a headline about a “girl of 8” used as an alleged suicide bomber. As the article later made clear, the age of the girl subsequently accepted by the US army was 16. The headline was therefore misleading. Similarly, the article referred to two women with Down’s syndrome who were allegedly used as suicide bombers in February. While the claim was widely reported at the time, I do not believe it has ever been proven. Perhaps papers like Metro should apologise to those distressed by such coverage?”