By Soaliha Iqbal
There’s no doubt you saw the coverage of a Sudanese refugee stabbing a man in the neck in Belfast on June 8, and the race riots that ensued. However, there’s a good chance you didn’t hear about a white woman in Bristol who was jailed weeks earlier for an axe attack linked to terrorism. Or the white British man who, in the same week as the Belfast stabbing, stabbed a Muslim student to death in Cambridge. Or the white Scottish man who went on an anti-Muslim stabbing spree in Edinburgh.
On June 8, a Sudanese refugee attacked a white man in Belfast.
Confronting and horrific footage of him straddling the man and cutting at his face and neck was shared widely online.
We all saw the coverage of the “attempted beheading”, which quickly morphed into rabid anti-immigration talking points that reporting shows helped stoke race riots across the UK.
In Belfast alone, 27 people including a two-month-old baby were left homeless as buildings were burned and violent, racist mobs took over the streets.
As we reported at the time, the suggestion that this was an “attempted beheading” was never made by authorities, and this specific wording surfaced in some headlines after right-wing populist party Reform - which has an anti-immigration agenda - put out a statement using it. We note that at least one of these headlines was later updated and changed to not use the term ‘beheading’.
Sky News even linked the Belfast attack to a rise in terrorism and extremism across the UK, despite police never having established that the suspect had any terror links.
But here’s the thing: terrorism had been brought to the streets of the UK, but you wouldn't know it from the media coverage ... or lack thereof.
