-By Warner Todd Huston
OK, I am wondering here if the hanging of a black Southerner by the KKK in the American south would be reported by the Chicago Tribune in the same kind of vague language of “cultural” murder as a recent Muslim murder in Georgia was treated? More likely, of course, the story would be immediately pegged to the racist, white motives that actually led to the murder. In essence that is how the Chicago Tribune mishandled their reporting of another so-called Islamic “honor killing” that occurred in Georgia this week. They wrote about the “culturally rigid Pakistani” immigrants and said that “honor killings” occur with “other South Asians” without ever once mentioning that this is more often than not a Muslin practice. Instead of pegging this murder to Muslim “culture” the Tribune makes it a vague and nondescript “culture” so that the reader is unaware of the connection with Islam.
The Tribune reports that 54-year-old Chaudhry Rashid, a Pakistani immigrant and pizza shop owner, strangled his 25-year-old daughter Sandeela with a bungie cord as they argued about the arranged marriage she was forced into. All the facts about the case were in the story but one: the connection to Islam.
The problem comes where the Tribune and other western news services are completely leaving out the fact that this is an Islamic custom. The Trib did its level best to avoid using the words “Islam” and Muslim” and replaced them with “cultural,” et al, throughout the story.
Continue reading “Chgo Trib’s ‘Honor Killing’ Report Omits Islam Connection”
It looks like a wayward hippie from Haight-Ashbury circa 1967 found himself a time machine and came forward to 2008 and barricaded himself in the editorial room of the Chicago Tribune, today. To celebrate this magical feat, the Trib has gathered together all their best thinkers and, guided by their time leaping hippie, they’ve decided to advocate a little tonic for the New Year: