Tariq Alhomayed, Editor-in-Chief of the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, wonders whether giving any publicity at all to terrorists only encourages them to keep up their destructive work. He notes that when formerly extremist thinkers change their minds and publish new thinking, the recidivists (particularly in London, he finds!) are ready to tear them down.

He proposes a difficult question. Is it possible to cover the news about terrorism without feeding the terrorists? I think it is, but it wil require media—international as well as Arab—to pay more attention to the consequences of what they publish. This is not to allow the lowest common denominator to set the standard. Instead, the media should take the time or space or ink to point out the flaws in extremist thinking, not just repeat what is being said in a benighted attempt at ‘balance and fairness’. Terrorism is not balanced; it is not fair.

Is London Tora Bora?
Tariq Alhomayed

From within the Egyptian Torah prison emerged an intellectual revision put forward by Dr Sayid Imam al Sharif, the theorist behind the fundamentalist Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization, entitled ‘Initiative to Reform Jihad’ in Egypt and the world so that indiscriminate killings, the targeting of civilians, the usurping of funds and the spreading of terror amongst people would be reconsidered.

Surprisingly, the reply, or rather the majority of attacks waged against these ideas, which seem to have taken place away from the eyes of the British, did not come from the caves of Tora Bora or from Al Qaeda in Iraq, or even from any Arab country. Rather, these attacks were launched from London where the ideas that call for reconsidering the rationalizing of murder and terror were deemed invalid and an act of surrender in order to improve Sharif’s prison conditions or to mitigate his sentence.

How alarming and frustrating to hear such arguments emerge from London, especially since we have only just watched Osama Bin Laden’s new recording in which he addresses Europe. We do not know if this tape is just another installment to his series of political speeches or if it is a coded message for his followers in Europe to carry out a terrorist act.

It is alarming because those who trade in death and destruction continue to flourish. A few days ago, Saudi security authorities announced the arrests of 208 people accused of having links to terrorism. The stated figure included those who wanted to carry out suicide attacks, others who intended to assassinate religious scholars with whom they disagreed and others who sought to mobilize public opinion via the internet.

… If only this issue was limited to revisions! The truth is that we have seen parties in London that oppose and sanctify fighters in Iraq. Could we describe this as freedom of opinion or as support for Al Qaeda?

Freedom of opinion can never call for the killing of innocents. Margaret Thatcher used to say, “Deny terrorism the oxygen of publicity.” In the media, we have fought and are still fighting a battle to expose terrorism, its instigators and those who justify it in the Arab world however; the problem is that we find that there is strong support for terrorism in London. Are we facing a problem of awareness or is it a result of what is taking place via the internet and the media?