Pakistani terrorist targets BNP members
News has come out that two Pakistani Muslims have been arrested for allegedly plotting to murder unnamed members of the British National Party. Explosives were to be used, according to media reports. The charges were filed in the Yorkshire area of Northern England, where the BNP has made inroads among people concerned about the growing Islamification of the area.
The alleged plan is not the first bombing plot aimed at the BNP, whose leader Nick Griffin was targetted on a Swedish train at one point. Government, the media and anti-nationalist groups add to the climate of violence directed at these dissidents: Griffin himself recently beat a bogus “hate speech” charge in the same area. Media depictions of the BNP as evil “racists” allows some people to categorize them as devoid of human worth and rights, fuelling the violence BNP members and leaders must face.
Most have probably heard of the story reported late on Friday about BNP members being targeted by terrorists, but it’s how the BBC reported it that deserves further comment.
Its headline was ‘Boy in court…’ The opening sentence: “A British teenager who is accused of possessing material for terrorist purposes has appeared in court.”
The Huddersfield Examiner wasn’t much better with its “Teen targets BNP members…”
‘Boy’ and ‘Teen’ could be considered strange words to use in the headlines of a report of someone facing two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000, one relating to the possession of material for terrorist purposes and the other to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism. But the words will have been specifically selected by the respective news editors to soften the implications of the story in an attempt to trivialise the seriousness of the offence. This is because the ‘victims’ in this case are members of the British National Party and under no circumstances does the National Union of Journalists allow the BNP to gain victim status.
The 17 year-old in court can by no stretch of the imagination be called ‘a boy’ and that fact that it is reported elsewhere that he has dual Pakistani nationality, in the eyes of most British people he wouldn’t be considered your run-of-the-mill ‘British’ teenager.
The correct headline should, of course, have been ‘Pakistani terrorist targets BNP members’.
http://martinwingfield.blogspot.com/2007/10/toddler-targets-bnp-members.html