During the past few days, a video showing a man brutally murdering an Indian expat in Riyadh went viral on the social media. Since I was told about the horrific nature of the video, I could not muster the courage to watch it myself but I read a number of reports about that gory incident online.
Those reports reminded me of a similar incident that took place on May 22, 2013 in London. A British citizen of Nigerian origin brutally murdered a soldier. What added salt to injury was the fact that the murderer had converted to Islam in 2003 due to which that incident got linked to terror attacks in the name of Islam. What really caught my attention was the manner in which the British media reported the issue. It was treated as top priority breaking news. The entire nation was following the developments with a feeling that their long claimed safety on the streets, which they usually take for granted, was jeopardized. That incident was treated as a national tragedy.
On the contrary, the media coverage to the brutal killing of the Indian expat was nothing but shameful. Such an incident should have been treated as a national tragedy. An innocent life was lost for no reason in broad daylight on a busy street. The coverage of the killing and its follow-up is far from satisfactory. Nobody knows for sure who the murderer is. We only read about claims that he has been diagnosed with psychological problems. He was hospitalized and then released. Even on the social media platforms, the video was just shared then people lost interest. Watching our national media makes us feel as if we live in a la la land. On the other hand, other Arabic-language channels have specialized in reporting wars and tragedies from around the globe. I really feel sad that we don’t have a proper national channel that reports our issues properly.
When I watch the BBC, sometimes I feel that the government’s decision to discontinue free meals at schools (just an example) is a very important piece of news, they meet parents and teachers and officials from the government and they all discuss it, and needless to say, watching the British channels sometimes makes me feel that we are still in our infancy when it comes to media. We are not asking for something unachievable, we are just asking for a representative media. Such an incident should have been treated with more care and we should have shown respect at least to the family of the innocent Indian expat. We all know that in Islam an innocent soul is more precious than the Kaaba itself.
@ HatoonKadi
