Brit Humes
Fox News TV
Dear Brit Humes
A number of your viewers have told me that on July 1 your show
excerpted a
few lines from my Friday sermon in Greenboro, North Carolina and tried
to
pass it off as "hate speech."
Your group, I have been told, focused on these parts of my sermon:
1. In which I extolled the role of
Palestinian
women in the liberation struggle against
Israel.
2. That part wherein I urged Muslims to stand
up
for their rights in America because the
Zionist
Jews who control this country
will not leave them alone if they stay quietly in their homes and
mosques.
You could not pronounce my name correctly but you insisted on passing
verdict
on my words.
Looks like you are so ensconced in the comfort of Fox studios that you
have
stopped paying attention to the norms of honest journalism. My
journalism
students know that:
1. Context and premise must be provided to ensure accuracy in
journalism.
2. The source of information must be stated.
3. If someone is criticized by name, he/she should be given the right
of
reply.
4. Stereotypes must be avoided.
Your group violated all the rules of honest journalism.
1. You mentioned me by name and tried to defame me as a hate monger but
you
did not give me the opportunity to reply.
1a. You did not mention your source so that anyone who wanted to find
out
WHAT I REALLY SAID would not be able to do so. [I suspect that my
sermon was
provided to you by the Jewish Federation which has been laboring to
condemn
my sermon ever since it appeared in ARAB NEWS of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.]
2. You did not mention the context or the premise of my sermon. For
instance
you omitted the foundations of the khutba which were that:
i. Muslims do not coerce any person of any religion to embrace
Islam.
ii. Muslims do not want anyone's land. In fact all the fighting is
going on
in our lands, be it Palestine, Kashmir,
Afghanistan
or
Chechnya.
iii. We have historically befriended and protected the Jews. We oppose
them
today because they have taken Palestine by force and because they
control the
lives of millions through monopoly of the media and financial
institutions.
These are verifiable facts. You ignored them all.
Your "assassination-in-passing" of my good name is typical of the
way
you exhibit your media power. You tried to present me as a "fiery
preacher"
and hatemonger without knowing that I have more religious and western
education than the whole bunch of you.
I doubt if you could stand up to me in an honest, fair debate.
Sincerely
Kaukab Siddique, B.A. (Hons), M.A., Ph.D.
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2002-07-04 Thu 21:16ct