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PRESS RELEASE (24)
Sudanese terror suspects!
Guilty, despite being declared innocent!
Admirers of British democracy are sometime intrigued by the way the media (one of the bright features of this democracy) sometimes distort democracy.
The best example is the aftermath of the terror attacks in London in July 05. The right-wing press (and some of the not so right- wing newspapers too) had a field day. Islamophobic generalisations abounded. The cynics (and some of those interested in civil liberties) suspected that scaring the population was a necessary precondition for curbing 800 years of freedoms. They were vindicated when anti-terror laws were later used to snoop on dog walkers or citizens needing a certain school for their children!
Some Sudanese students were caught up in the post July 21 failed terror attacks. They were “charged with failing to disclose information that may help police investigating an act of terrorism.”Their names (and the reputation of the peace loving and law abiding Sudanese community) were tarnished. After three years (during which they enjoyed the fairness of free legal aid and good treatment) They were found to be innocent. The jury’s decision was unanimous. The sigh of relief of family and friends meant that they could (after the three lost years) carry on with their university studies. They decided (after their ordeal) to continue their studies elsewhere.
What, one may ask is the problem? The problem is that the media in the UK, which repeated the names of Omer Almagboul and Shadi Sami Abdul Gadir tens of times during the Islamophobic feeding campaign did not consider their innocence a news item. Their arrest was front page news and it still is because their innocence has not been publicised in the same way. Correspondents from Khartoum and Nairobi who reported even pin-pricks and mosquito bites never wired the news of the arrival of the two young students to Khartoum. As a result, the two are still guilty in the collective memory of the reading and listening UK public, despite being declared innocent by the legal system of a great democracy; which intriguingly can be twisted and distorted by one of its most highly esteemed centrepieces!
What, one may ask is the problem? The problem is that the media in the UK, which repeated the names of Omer Almagboul and Shadi Sami Abdul Gadir tens of times during the Islamophobic feeding campaign did not consider their innocence a news item. Their arrest was front page news and it still is because their innocence has not been publicised in the same way. Correspondents from Khartoum and Nairobi who reported even pin-pricks and mosquito bites never wired the news of the arrival of the two young students to Khartoum. As a result, the two are still guilty in the collective memory of the reading and listening UK public, despite being declared innocent by the legal system of a great democracy; which intriguingly can be twisted and distorted by one of its most highly esteemed centrepieces!