Sunday, September 23, 2012

CTV's Double Standard for Covering Khomeinist "Protests"

When local Khomeinists convened their annual anti-Zionist seethe-a-thon on the grounds of Queen's Park, CTV was nowhere in sight. But the same players, in more or less the same numbers, show up to "protest" against a certain YouTube trailer, and CTV high-tails it to the event:
Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Toronto on Saturday to protest an anti-Islam film that denounces the Prophet Muhammad.

An estimated 1,500 people surrounded the embassy on University Avenue to call on the U.S. government to prosecute the filmmaker, allegedly a Christian Egyptian based out of Los Angeles.

One man at the protest told CP24 that hate speech against Islam or any other religion should not be tolerated.

“Free speech does not give you a right to go and attack someone’s faith,” said a man who only gave his first name, Mohammed. “If anybody is attacking the Jewish faith or the Christian faith, Muslims would be hand in hand with them to denounce it. The same thing applies to the Islamic faith.” 
Director of Toronto’s Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought Zafar Bangash said the government has not done enough to stop the spread of the film. 
“What it has done is disrupted the social peace and it has created a lot of turmoil in the Muslim world as well as it has angered Muslims wherever they may be,” he told CTV Toronto. 
The peaceful demonstration began Saturday afternoon. A number of Toronto police officers closely monitored the area in and around the consulate as protesters chanted, “Shame, shame U.S.A.”
One woman said she’d like to see the film blocked online. 
“We are disappointed in this movie and we are asking Google and YouTube to stop this movie,” she said...
Same players as Al Quds Day; same anti-West, anti-freedom venom. But I guess for CTV and other mainstream outlets, threats lobs against Israel are, well, ho hum, while "protests" against "insults" to Islam are far more deserving of coverage. That said, you won't get the real scoop on CTV. For that you'll have to take a looky-loo at BCF.

Update: Here's a Shia TV video of the event. (FYI, the sound and visuals aren't very good, but they show that, unlike the Al Quds Day soiree, which saw lots of women and kiddies in attendance, yesterday's "protest" was largely an all-male affair.)

Update: Eye on a Crazy Planet was there too.

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