Another story of violence against non-Muslims within the Muslim world.The bare facts are that three men wielding knives simultaneously attacked Good Friday worshippers in three Coptic churches in Alexandria, Egypt.
Now we’ll look at three different MSM takes on the story.
First we have the “straight version”, from News 24 (South Africa):
Three knife-wielding men attacked worshippers in simultaneous attacks during Friday Mass at three Coptic churches in the northern Mediterranean city of Alexandria, killing one person and wounding more than a dozen others, police officials said.
The attackers fled, and police cordoned off the churches and set up checkpoints in an effort to find them.
Next there is the “Christian version”, from UPI:
Muslim extremists posing as beggars attacked three churches in north Egypt on Good Friday, killing one worshipper and injuring 16 others.
A security source told United Press International that the incident occurred in the morning as worshippers attended mass in the churches of Saint Georges, the Two Saints and Abu Keer in the city of Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea.
The source said the three attackers wearing rugged clothes used swords and knives in their attacks, before managing to flee. [emphasis added]
And finally we have the “Muslim version”, from CNN, of all places:
Knife-wielding assailants attacked worshippers at three Coptic churches in the northern Mediterranean city of Alexandria during Mass, killing one person and wounding more than a dozen, police officials said.
Police said they had arrested three men in Friday’s attacks. One was said to have attacked two churches; one assaulted a third church; and the other was arrested during a foiled attack on a fourth church.
A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, characterized the men as “insane” and said they were carrying tranquilizing medication. [emphasis added]
I’ll buy the “insanity” angle. Insanity isn’t all that inconsistent with Islam, is it?
CNN is the only place I could find this insanity meme. Even Aljazeera didn’t have it — their version was one of the “straight” ones. And CNN's story wasn’t the most recent one on Google News.
Perhaps we should start referring to it as “al-CNN”.
3 comments:
Islam condemns to death anyone who leaves the muslim faith. Muslims routinely bomb the churches and temples of non-muslim religions, and attack non-muslims where they worship. Muslims even bomb the mosques of other muslims who have a slightly different approach to Islam.
Is Islam an insane religion? In terms of modern thinking, yes, of course it is. Such intolerance to others ways of thinking is almost inconceivable in the post-enlightenment, post-renaissance world of the west.
Unfortunately, for over a billion people of the world, it is simply the way that they think.
That is amazing! The differences in the stories. Just freekin amazing!
Good post, but you miss out the final final version of the story - the "official" version from the Egyptian govt.
Given that three simultaneous attacks smacks of co-ordination, and therefore might be inconsistent with insanity, the Egyptian Govt is putting it about that there was, in fact, only ONE attacker and so there is no problem - just one lone lunatic....
Read Sandmonkey or FFE.
PG
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