Daily Telegraph scribe Luke McIlveen has made some very unfair attacks on internet discussion forums frequented by a small minority of Muslim kids. His expose today of the attack on prominent young Muslim Iktimal Hage-Ali also makes interesting reading.
The reported attack on the Muslim Village forums has included claims that she has no right to represent Australian Muslims because she occasionally drinks alcohol and refuses to wear a traditional Muslim hijab. But others have also been pilloried on the same forums, including Asma Hilaly, the Lakemba Sheik’s talented and well-spoken daughter. Ms Hilaly was criticised for … wait for it … plucking her eyebrows!
I’ve been described on the Muslim Village forums as being in need of liposuction. Tanveer Ahmed and other prominent Muslims have also been attacked. It’s disturbing and it’s nasty. At times, it’s even defamatory.
But is it newsworthy? And how is the abuse on some Muslim forums any different to some of the abuse I cop from anonymous posters at the Online Opinion forums? Or to abuse copped by Stephen Mayne in moderated comments (not to mention editorial imputations) published on the personal blog of the DT’s own opinion editor about the assault on Stephen Mayne? Are we to conclude from this that Blair and/or the Tele support and promote violence?
McIlveen disturbingly claims Hage-Ali was “vilified for behaving like an Australian”. Is he suggesting you aren’t a real Aussie if you refuse alcohol and leave your head uncovered? If so, where does that leave non-Muslim teetotalers like Fred Nile? Would McIlveen castigate the Virgin Mary were she to return with her son for his second coming?
© Irfan Yusuf 2006
