LONDON: The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has added its voice to the growing list of those accusing The Sun newspaper of deliberately using Nazi terminology in attacking Muslims, claiming it could incite further Islamophobic attacks.
Writing in The Sun, the UK’s most widely read newspaper, one of the paper’s leading writers Trevor Kavanagh declared the country had a “Muslim Problem.”
The phrase drew obvious comparisons to “The Jewish Problem” — an expression used in Nazi Germany prior to the Holocaust, which left millions of Jews dead.
The backlash has seen over 100 UK MPs write to The Sun complaining about the language used, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Tell MAMA — a group that measures anti-Muslim attacks — complain directly to the Independent Press Standards Organization (IPOS).
Miqdaad Versi, assistant secretary general of the MCB, claimed that using such a phrase was grossly alarming at a time when hate crimes against Muslims are on the increase.
“The fact that a national newspaper columnist asks readers for a solution to the ‘Muslim Problem’ is truly disgusting,” Versi told Arab News.
“It appears the editors believed it was appropriate to use Nazi-like terminology about Muslims, showing the serious challenges we face in the UK.
“In the United Kingdom, there has been a rise in Islamophobia and hate crime, with 40 neo-Nazis currently being investigated for fears they are plotting terrorist attacks against Muslims.
“In this climate, such a column is not only irresponsible but downright dangerous.”
In an article about immigration following the Newcastle sex abuse scandal — in which Asian men were convicted of abusing young girls — Kavanagh laid the blame squarely on Islam, writing: “Muslims are a specific rather than a cultural problem”. He concluded by asking “What will we do about The Muslim Problem.”
MPs from across the political spectrum reacted by putting their names to a latter calling for the article to be retracted and asking whether Kavanagh’s position at The Sun is now tenable.
“It is shocking that in the 21st century a columnist is using such Nazi-like terminology about a minority community,” the letter to The Sun editor Tony Gallagher read.
“Muslims currently face threats from far right and neo-Nazi groups in the UK and your publication of this article can therefore only be seen as an attempt to further stoke up hatred and hostility against Muslims.”
The Sun, however, rubbished accusations of Islamophobia and using Nazi-like terminology, claiming Kavanagh was simply “drawing links between immigration, religion and crime.”
“We strongly reject the allegation that Trevor Kavanagh is inciting Islamophobia,” a Sun spokesperson told Arab News.
“He is reflecting the links between immigration, religion and crime in the context of a trial of largely Pakistani sex gangs.
“Any suggestion that this article is promoting Islamophobia is a deliberate misreading of a very serious subject. Furthermore, it was never the intention that other elements of the column would be equated to Nazi-like terminology.”
Speaking earlier to Arab News about the sex grooming scandal, Neil Chakraborti, an academic who sits on the advisory board of Tell MAMA, said it was “simplistic” to blame Muslims as a whole for such sickening crimes.
“While it’s understandable that there’s a lot of anger and emotion following such a case, to label a particular community as culpable because of their skin color is simplistic,” Chakraborti said.
“The problem is more multi-layered and complex than that. After such crimes we all need in some way to take ownership.”
‘Muslim Problem’ article could incite hate crime, UK group warns
‘Muslim Problem’ article could incite hate crime, UK group warns
Trump pays respects to 2 Iowa National Guardsmen and interpreter killed in Syria as they return home
Trump pays respects to 2 Iowa National Guardsmen and interpreter killed in Syria as they return home
- The two guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware: President Donald Trump on Wednesday paid his respects to two Iowa National Guard members and a US civilian interpreter who were killed in an attack in the Syrian desert, joining their grieving families as their remains were brought back to the country they served.
Trump met privately with the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before the dignified transfer, a solemn ritual conducted in honor of US service members killed in action. The civilian was also included in the transfer.
Trump, who traveled to Dover several times in his first term, once described it as “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.
The two guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, and have been hailed as heroes by the Iowa National Guard.
Torres-Tovar’s and Howard’s families were at Dover for the return of their remains, alongside Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, members of Iowa’s congressional delegation and leaders of the Iowa National Guard. Their remains will be taken to Iowa after the transfer.
A US civilian working as an interpreter, identified Tuesday as Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, was also killed. Three other members of the Iowa National Guard were injured in the attack. The Pentagon has not identified them.
They were among hundreds of US troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Daesh group.
The process of returning service member remains
There is no formal role for a president at a dignified transfer other than to watch in silence, with all thoughts about what happened in the past and what is happening at Dover kept to himself for the moment. There is no speaking by any of the dignitaries who attend, with the only words coming from the military officials who direct the highly choreographed transfers.
Trump arrived without first lady Melania Trump, who had been scheduled to accompany him, according to the president’s public schedule. Her office declined to elaborate, with spokesperson Nick Clemens saying the first lady “was not able to attend today.”
During the process at Dover, transfer cases draped with the American flag that hold the soldiers’ remains are carried from the belly of a hulking C-17 military aircraft to a waiting vehicle under the watchful eyes of grieving family members. The vehicle then transports the remains to the mortuary facility at the base, where the fallen are prepared for burial at their final resting places.
Iowa National Guard members hailed as heroes
Howard’s stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, has said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out.” He said Howard had wanted to be a soldier since he was a boy.
In a social media post, Bunn, who is chief of the Tama, Iowa, police department, said Howard was a loving husband and an “amazing man of faith.” He said Howard’s brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, would escort “Nate” back to Iowa.
Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” family-oriented person who always put others first, according to fellow Guard members who were deployed with him and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.
Dina Qiryaqoz, the daughter of the civilian interpreter who was killed, said Wednesday in a statement that her father worked for the US Army during the invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Sakat is survived by his wife and four adult children.
The interpreter was from Bakhdida, Iraq, a small Catholic village southeast of Mosul, and the family immigrated to the US in 2007 on a special visa, Qiryaqoz said. At the time of his death, Sakat was employed as an independent contractor for Virginia-based Valiant Integrated Services.
Sakat’s family was still struggling to believe that he is gone. “He was a devoted father and husband, a courageous interpreter and a man who believed deeply in the mission he served,” Qiryaqoz said.
Trump’s reaction to the attack in Syria
Trump told reporters over the weekend that he was mourning the deaths. He vowed retaliation. The most recent instance of US service members killed in action was in January 2024, when three American troops died in a drone attack in Jordan.
Saturday’s deadly attack followed a rapprochement between the US and Syria, bringing the former pariah state into a US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group.
Trump has forged a relationship with interim Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the onetime leader of an Islamic insurgent group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.
Trump, who met with Al-Sharaa last month at the White House, said Monday that the attack had nothing to do with the Syrian leader, who Trump said was “devastated by what happened.”
During his first term, Trump visited Dover in 2017 to honor a US Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, in 2019 for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, and in 2020 for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.
