British lawmaker appalled at how media portrays Muslims in UK

(Photo: REUTERS / Toby Melville)Women hold placards during a march and rally in east London December 13, 2013. They were participating in a rally organized by British Islamist Anjem Choudary condemning use of alcohol and promoting Shariah law.

Yasmin Qureshi, a Pakistani-born British Labour Party politician, has said that words put out in Britain regarding Muslims are similar to those put out by the Nazis against the Jews.

The elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolton South East, in the north of England, claimed that 99.99 percent of media coverage is anti-Muslim, with "complete lies" and made-up stories.

"A lot of the media actually publish complete lies on their front pages like, for example, the Muslim plot to kill the Pope - a complete lie... and it goes on and on and on."

Qureshi said that a lot of people in some parts of the country have "never come across a Muslim person or a black person or an Asian person.

"This means that their views about a particular religion, group or culture will solely depend on what they read on paper, Hillingdon and Uxbridge Times reported.

Qureshi told a public debate at London's Westminster Hall about a recent survey telling that about 33 percent of the people in UK think that Muslims are "not really right for this country" and their religion "is not appropriate."

She is offended by this because, she may not be born in UK, but she was brought up in the country.

A Muslim herself, she feels deeply for the three million Muslims in the UK who may be experiencing severe persecution.

She continued: "I do think in this respect it's great we have free speech and free press, but I think we should have some responsibility because it is this kind of hatred perpetrated by particular groups that leads to what happened in places like Bosnia or happened in the Second World War."

Qureshi revealed that independent research conducted in different universities shows that the negative stories involving Muslims have distorted their image among people.

"All religions have some things to answer - they've all got things in them which can be looked at. But I think to concentrate on one group of people, and put lies in the way they do, is really wrong."

Last year, Unitas Communications submitted a report to the Leveson Inquiry into the media, including phone hacking,

It concluded that the persistence of anti-Muslim trends in British Media reporting has directly contributed to the inaccurate stereotypes and misconceptions about British Muslims.

This led to an increasingly hostile climate and anti-Muslim hate crimes over the last decade.

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