This article (http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=166682007#new) – regarding the men arrested in connection with the alleged beheading terror plot – really bugged me.
I’m not in a position to know the ins-and-outs of the arrest and whether or not the plot was real, etc, but what I found a little disturbing about this article was the fact that the journalist has accepted that the case against these men is already proven.
Surely the headline should be “A new kind of terror allegedly comes to these shores”?
The article is sensationalist from start to finish. There is no proof, as of yet, that these men are guilty as charged. Once that comes, by all means treat it as a new form of terror. Until then, stop treating the accusations as fact. The police have got it wrong before. These men could be fanatics that are prepared to murder. Then again, they could just as easily have never been going to do it. The point is, we don’t know yet.
It seems that, in the UK, when it comes to anybody accused of plotting terrorism, as opposed to being arrested for carrying out an ordinary crime, all question of innocent until proven guilty goes out of the window.
Equally worrying are all of the comments after the article, many are along the lines of “stop immigration, all Muslims should adopt our culture, we won’t be invaded from within”. The last thing we need is more prejudice.
People should be just as worried about the erosion of tolerance and the way that the media are increasingly buying what the government and police tell them. What extremists on all sides want is for people to hate each other more. We’re giving them what they want.