Norway atrocities a wake-up call for West, says UK journalist
The horrific bombing and massacres in Norway should be a wake-up call for the growing threat posed by far-right extremists in Western countries, a British broadcaster and journalist has suggested.
“I think the police across Europe and the USA need to look at the new threat presented by Christian fundamentalists who seem to be able to get guns, other weapons, police uniforms and bomb-making equipment with the greatest of ease,” said Yvonne Ridley.
“This terrorist strike in Norway is horrific and could be the start of a terror campaign by rightwing fundamentalists,” Ridley said.
“Just because the attacker is not olive or black skinned and does not follow the Muslim faith this does not make Friday’s horrific crime the actions of some recluse acting as a lone terrorist. He had to have a network and support to plan and carry out such an atrocity,” she said.
Western countries have struggled to come to terms with the killing of at least 92 people in a gun massacre at an Norwegian island youth camp and deadly bombing in Oslo after police captured 32 year old nationalist Anders Behring Breivik, who boasted links with the far right.
“As soon as it emerged the killer was a blond, blue-eyed, white Christian fundamentalist, the BBC, New York Times and a number of other western media dropped the use of the word terrorism,” Ridley said.
The change in the tone of reporting Norway’s worst-ever terrorist attacks is contrasted with “the usual knee-jerk reactions automatically linking the attack with al-Qaeda,” she said
“The first newspaper to declare this Oslo’s 9/11 was Murdoch’ s daily The Sun in London which went on to blame al Qaeda, and a few so-called terror experts who’ve made a nice living out of Muslim-bashing and baiting over the years joined in the scramble to say who was behind the terror attacks.”
“Obviously our first thoughts are with the families of those who have died and those who are still waiting to hear news of the fate of their loved ones. The deaths of innocents, anywhere, are to be condemned,” the British broadcaster said.
But she pointed out that across the UK a large number of arrests and terror plots have been thwarted by anti-terror police and said “we have not heard about these because the media loses interest if the accused is not called Mohamed, Bilal or Tariq.”
“However the accused are white, rightwing extremists. During 2009 there were 294 terrorist attacks and attempts in Europe but only one was down to Islamists. Yet the publicity is disproportionate,” she said.
Source: irib.ir
