The Sun newspaper has been condemned for “fear-mongering” and inciting “community division” after its front page story this morning claimed “nearly one in five British Muslims has some sympathy with those who have fled the UK to fight for IS in Syria.”
The story, which appeared under a picture of Jihadi John brandishing a knife, said its figures were based on a poll conducted after the Paris atrocities.
The Sun said the survey’s findings “show a clear majority of the 2.7million Brits who follow Islam are moderate.” But it said the survey “found 19 per cent of UK Muslims do have some sympathy with those like barbaric Jihadi John who flee to Syria.”
The newspaper, which has nearly 5 million readers daily, suggested this if the poll reflected views across the country “it would mean 500,000 have some support for jihadis.”
Condemnation
But The Sun’s reporting was almost immediately castigated – by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Writing in The Independent journalists Jon Stone said there were some very big problems with the story and the way it had interpreted a poll.
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He wrote: “The poll question the story is based on does not even mention jihadis.”
He added: “The first and most important is the wording of the question. ‘Sympathy’ is a very broad term and does not necessarily imply full-blooded support. People who say they have sympathy with something might be saying they understand why someone has come to do something, even if they think it is wrong. They may even simply be saying that feel bad for a person in that situation…
“The biggest problem with the poll is that if you ask non-Muslims the same questions, they actually provide very similar responses. The same poll question, asked for Sky News in March to all GB residents – found that 14 per cent of the general population had some ‘sympathy’ for young Muslims leaving to fight in Syria.
“This is about the same, taking into account sample variation, as the figure for just Muslims when the poll was asked.”
Meanwhile, the social media reaction was even harsher…
