A campaign group is urging members of the Muslim community to lobby the BBC over a comment made on the channel.
The remark was made on the ´Have I got News For You´ show last Friday when host Sharon Horgan said: ‘The Independent described the Dostoevsky metro station… as the Mecca for suicides. Not to be confused with the Mecca of suicide bombers – which is Mecca.’ Campaign group The Muslim Public Affairs Committee said: “This offhand comment does nothing except reinforce the message that Islam has something within its fundamental beliefs that makes it a threat to civil society Allowing this comment to go unchecked justifies the statement and condones such demonisation, as the comment implicitly implies that all Muslims are terrorists and all terrorists are Muslims.’ The group is urging readers of it’s website to complain to the BBC over the remark.
However, Sharon Horgan has apologised for any offence caused and said she was not prejudice in any way.
She tweeted, “I am anti any prejudice of any kind. And particularly the generally lazy media portrayal of Muslims or any blanket negativity towards Islam.
“ I am Irish for God’s sake. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s Ireland and therefore am all too aware of stereotyping by the general public and media.
But HIGNFY 9Have I got News For you) is a political SATIRE show. POLITICAL SATIRE. Its job is to hold a mirror up to most media prejudice. It deals in irony and in that sense it does the OPPOSITE of what it’s actually saying.
“Any of the comments on here, which are suggesting I am racist or in any way anti-Muslim are a load of nonsense. HIGNFY, like all good satire plays on prejudices and that’s exactly what we were doing with this joke. Really hope that people understand this and stop threatening me.
“But if anyone misunderstood the intention of the joke - for it was a joke - then I apologise for any offence caused.”
Source: here
How ridiculous! I watched the programme and yes, it is tongue in the cheek satirical and political comedy and I never even noticed the comment. People are getting far to touchy these days!
