Sabina Nessa
“Hey Siri, what’s the news today?”
That’s me every workday morning while I’m getting ready for work, and the BBC News would rattle off the main headlines of the day. Today was no different. The headlines were pretty mundane to be honest, and this is exactly the reason why I will be putting a stop to this particular morning ritual.
Sabina Nessa (died 28) was a primary school teacher. Her body was found near a community centre in south east London on Saturday evening. The first time I heard about this news was when I came back home from work this evening. Why has Sabina Nessa’s murder not dominated the news? Take a wild guess… Hira Ali talks about this in the Independent. [1]
The subtle but sinister way in which conventional news media under report news like this is glaringly obvious.
Many will remember the grey Hyundai Tucson which was driven at high speed into Westminster Bridge pedestrians (March 2017) by a misled fool claiming to wage ‘jihad’ as revenge for military action in the East. [2] This resulted in multiple deaths and casualties which was horrific. During the aftermath, a picture was taken of the woman wearing a hijab and looking at her phone distressed on Westminster Bridge as people gathered around injured people nearby. [3] It was unfairly circulated on the socials and by anti Muslim blogs as “evidence” of her “lack of concern”. One social media user posted it alongside a photo of the Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood performing CPR on a victim with the caption “the main difference between Muslims and Christians”. She had nothing to do with the attack.
Only three months later (June 2017) a van was driven into pedestrians in Finsbury Park, by Darren Osborne, causing one death and injuring several more. [4] This occurred near the Muslim Welfare House, nearby Finsbury Park Mosque. The incident was investigated by counter-terrorism police as a terrorist attack. It was found that Osborne clearly had been radicalised and influenced by far-right anti-Muslim material he accessed.
The Finsbury attack is etched into the minds of Muslims who live in London, but not many others actually remember or have even heard of the attack. And that’s not without reason. If one were to compare the media coverage of the aftermaths of both attacks, the bias is obvious.
It would be naive to ignore the repeated pattern of discrimination in the way media and police treat victims of colour. — Hira Ali [5]
We are devastated to hear about the death of Sabina Nessa — yet another victim of violence against women.
