British transport police were reportedly called to a London railway “station at 1:18pm” on the 12th of December, 2016, “after receiving reports that a man had been assaulted on a train. The man, who is in his 40s, was taken to hospital with injuries consistent with having been stabbed. He remains in hospital in a serious, but not life threatening, condition.” Despite the fact that many witnesses reported that the attacker was targeting Muslims in a prolonged, hate-filled rampage with a knife through the train and out into Forest Hill station, the police have not declared this to be a ‘terrorist incident.’
Comment:
If the attacker had been a Muslim calling for the death of Jews or Christians, the story would have received much greater attention and been covered in a very different way. A full nine hours after the attack, a search of google news hits for the incident showed just 29 reports, which an hour later had risen to 31. Most of the reports were from small local news outlets and other obscure sources, and none of the reports did more than list the eye witness reports and the statement of British transport police that this was not a ‘terrorist incident’. The Metropolitan Police have not commented.
Many eye-witnesses reported that this was a targeted attack upon a Muslim. Emma Pinder told Mirror Online: “The man came running out of the station with a knife and everybody started running and screaming. He was shouting: ‘Whoever is Muslim, I will kill you.’ He was looking for anybody that was Muslim. Everybody was running and screaming. He was walking up and down the street for about 15 minutes”. Another man, Richard, told LBC Radio “the man with a knife first approached a woman wearing a hijab on the train…He brandishes a knife towards her and says ‘I’m not going to kill me a Muslim woman today. I want a Muslim man.'” Another eyewitness said the attacker “held a knife against a lady in a headscarf and asked: “where is your man?””
A London railway station was a scene of terror today as passengers fled and hid in fear of a crazed knifeman, but there have been no comments by UK politicians, no questions as to how the attacker was radicalized and if this was likely to be self-radicalization or if he could have been connected to one of the many hate-groups that operate in Europe, such as the one that the home secretary proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 on the same day as this attack on a Muslim rail passenger. The difference in reporting of crimes of an overtly ideological nature depending upon whether the victim or the perpetrator is a Muslim is remarkable. Were the perpetrator to have been a Muslim, the national soul searching and finger-pointing against Muslims in the UK would have been intense and prolonged.
Dr. Abdullah Robin