The Huffington Post UK says, “In its climb-down letter to Miqdaad Versi, a management consultant who complained about the story, the paper admitted it had no evidence to prove it’s factually stated ‘Muslim gang’ criminals were followers of Islam.”
In reality, however, Mail on Sunday Managing Editor John Wellington makes no such admission, but instead marshals the evidence and says that the story was “not inaccurate or misleading.” The Huffington Post waves away this evidence as “unverified tweets,” ignoring Wellington’s reference to Muslims who wrote approvingly about the attack, and dismisses the eyewitness for no apparent reason at all.
Nonetheless, despite affirming the story’s accuracy, Wellington apologizes, and writes, “we intended no disrespect to the Muslim religion.”
This is Britain today: a news outlet apologizes for running a story that it says is accurate, because it has offended Muslims. The Daily Mail, Mailonline, Mail on Sunday has always been maddeningly schizophrenic, publishing accurate material about jihad activity that other news outlets didn’t dare touch, while smearing and denigrating foes of jihad terror at every opportunity. Its coverage of our free speech event in Garland, Texas in May demonstrated conclusively that it has no understanding of the importance of the freedom of speech, and no will to defend it. And this unnecessary “climb-down” shows that it shares the general malaise of British society: Muslims are a protected class and are not to be offended, no matter what — even by the truth.
“Mail On Sunday Apologises For Offensive ‘Muslim Gang’s Attack On Immigration-Raid Van’ Story,” by Aubrey Allegretti, Huffington Post UK, July 30, 2015 (thanks to Lookmann):
The Mail On Sunday has apologised for publishing an “offensive” article on a Muslim crime gang, after it was revealed there was no evidence to prove the perpetrators of an attack on immigration enforcement vehicles were Muslim.
The national newspaper issued a letter saying it “intended no disrespect to the Muslim religion”, after printing a story which claimed Islamic youths were behind the “disturbing” vandalism of three Home Office vans and a single un-marked car on Saturday.
Days after the original article was published, the Mail On Sunday’s managing editor admitted that the criminals’ religion had only been identified because of unverified tweets, sent by a supposed Muslim Twitter account, and after one witness claimed: “I think they were local Muslim hoodies.”
In its climb-down letter to Miqdaad Versi, a management consultant who complained about the story, the paper admitted it had no evidence to prove it’s factually stated “Muslim gang” criminals were followers of Islam….
“We apologise again for any offence that was cause”. [sic; the Mail editor wrote “caused,” but the HuffPo UK illiterately misquoted him as writing “cause.”]