Newsweek starts Jihad
That's my headline for you. You may have noticed there are a lot of Muslims furious about reports of the Quran being placed on a toilet, and even flushed, during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. There have been riots and protests in Afghanistan, but I haven't heard about anything happening anywhere else, but it would be surprising if it was limited to Afghanistan. Now, 300 clerics in a northeastern province of Afghanistan have said they will declare holy war against the US unless they hand over the interrogators responsible, to be tried by an Islamic country. I guess holy war it is then because, yeah, that's going to happen. What I read in this story for the first time was that this whole thing has stemmed from a Newsweek article, where the desecration of the Quran was first reported. Let me paste the par:Newsweek magazine said in its May 9 edition investigators probing abuses at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay found that interrogators "had placed Qurans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet."So, here's my question. At what point should journalism censor itself? Clearly people would not have died in protests in Afghanistan; perhaps a(nother) holy war would not be declared on the US, if this had not been reported.
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So that's what I saved as a draft last night and then couldn't be bothered posting as I thought it a little ridiculous. I mean, if as a journalist you uncover something that shouldn't be happening, you should report it, right? Well, I figured this wasn't a case of that, as the reference to the Quran was one line in a short article. I'm posting now because Newsweek is apologising. This isn't to say it didn't happen. Stories of other abuses and forms of intimidation have been off colour to say the least, so this would come across as fairly tame to most Westerners who don't understand the significance to Muslims. That's all for now.
the earley edition - Posted by Dave @ 5/16/2005 12:32:00 am || ||
