In September, France passed a law banning women from wearing full-face burqas. Their reasoning was that it was a security risk and that it violated women’s human rights. Today, an audio tape was released. A person claiming to be Osama Bin Laden scolded France for impending on Muslim women’s rights to wear a burqa. Then he went further to threaten the country saying, “To the French people, I say that the formula is simple and clear: As you kill, you will be killed; as you imprison us, you will be imprisoned; as you threaten our security, we will threaten yours, and the one who started the oppression is the one to be blamed."
My question is this, Should we continue to allow Osama Bin Laden to have a national stage. Airing his statements affect a lot of people. First, the people that he is threatening (France and its people) become terrorized and may worry about possible attacks. Second, it affects al Qaeda followers giving them support and motivation to continue their resistance and terrorization. On the lighter side, his statements may empower Muslim women in knowing that someone is upset and fighting for their rights. Yet even there, who really wants to agree with Osama Bin Laden on any issue. He and his group are associated with killings and terrorist attacks all over the world.
I think that by putting Bin Laden on the national stage only allows him to continue to spread terror. In addition, they are not even sure that it is him speaking. I think that until they were sure, they shouldn’t have even thought about airing it. Even then, the media organizations need to understand that they are giving power to a terrorist by spreading his words of hate. Even though he is in hiding and his numbers have dwindled significantly due to the war, our publicizing of his hate keeps him strong and gives him a vehicle to spread his terror.
1 comment:
You make very good points. But have you considered that people should be aware, for their own safety, that there are active threats against their country that should be taken seriously? There are conflicting "rights" here. Would media organizations, in fact, be acting irresponsibly not to publicize the threats? How could it be justified?
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