Evening Standard – ‘’One in four British Muslims have sympathy with Charlie Hebdo gunmen,’ study shows.

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http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/nearly-one-in-two-british-muslims-believe-anti-western-preaching-is-in-line-with-mainstream-islam-10068576.html

Upon finding this statistic, it was instantly clear that the headline is misleading. Only 1,000 people were asked in the survey and therefore, the sample is too small to be representative of the whole Muslim population. According to ONS, there were 3,046,607 Muslims living in the UK in 2014 (ONS, 2016). Therefore, it cannot be claimed that one in four British Muslims have sympathy with Charlie Hebdo gunmen because if they had a bigger sample size it is likely that the result would not have been the same. Furthermore, by finding the actual survey online I found that 95% of the Muslims who participated in the survey, feel loyalty towards Britain. The headline is therefore again misleading because it fails to mention that the majority of those asked also felt loyalty to Britain as well as showing sympathy for the Charlie Hebdo gunmen, therefore they are simply highlighting the negative results regarding Muslims who participated. They also only asked the Muslim population about their opinions on the gunmen and no other religions. Therefore, there is no evidence that the rest of the British population would not agree with the question asked.

In conclusion, this headline conveys the wrong message about British Muslims and makes it seem as though all Muslims sympathise with terrorism. The headline could be made appropriate if it stated ‘1000 Muslims were surveyed, ¼ of them had some sympathy for the Charlie Hebdo gunmen, however 95% of them felt loyalty to Britain’. This would give a more accurate description of the survey results and would not suggest that all British Muslims sympathise with terrorists.

References

ONS, 2016. Home Employment and labour market People in work Employment and employee types Annual Population Survey Data for England, Wales and selected Local Authorities showing total population, and those who reported their religion as Muslim. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/adhocs/005254annualpopulationsurveydataforenglandwalesandselectedlocalauthoritiesshowingtotalpopulationandthosewhoreportedtheirreligionasmuslimfortheperiods2011to2014
[Accessed 3 April 2017].

 

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