Fox News issued an unusual on-air apology on Saturday night for having allowed its anchors and guests to repeat the false claim that there are Muslim-only “no-go zones” in European countries like England and France that are not under the control of the state and are ruled according to Shariah law. The statement was referred to as “a correction” by the Fox Report host Julie Banderas, who said that “over the course of this last week, we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France.“Now this applies especially to discussions of so-called no-go zones, areas where non-Muslims allegedly are not allowed in and police supposedly won’t go,” Ms. Banderas continued. “To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.” The claim that such areas existed attracted widespread attention, and a wave of online derision, last weekend when Steve Emerson, a self-described expert on Islamist terrorism, told the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that parts of France and the entire English city of Birmingham “are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” Mr. Emerson said such areas also included parts of London, Sweden and Germany, and he claimed, “You basically have zones where Shariah courts were set up, where Muslim density is very intense, where the police don’t go in, and where it’s basically a separate country almost, a country within a country.” Although Mr. Emerson was shamed into issuing a public apology to the people of Britain for what he called “sloppy research that had not been fact-checked” after a campaign of ridicule from British Twitter users, the news channel’s press office initially made no apology, and argued that it was inaccurate to call this an error by a “Fox News pundit,” since he was not a member of its staff. ”nytimes/2015/01/19/world/europe/fox-news-apologizes-for-false-claims-of-muslim-only-areas-in-england-and-france.html?_r=0
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:09:05 +0000
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