After ENORB Complaint, La RTBF Removes Image of Two Muslim Women from Unrelated Article about COVID-19 and Food Banks

Get The Trolls Out! partner for Francophone Belgium, European Network on Religion and Belief (ENORB) have sent a complaint to one of Belgium’s public broadcasters La RTBF (Belgian Radio-Television of the Francophone Community) for its unnecessary and unexplained choice to illustrate an online article, titled ‘Coronavirus in Belgium: Food Banks Are Crumbling under Demand’ with an image of two Muslim women. Even if unintentional, this photo risks amplifying unfair and discriminatory media discourses that claim that Muslim communities are responsible for the spread of COVID-19 in the country. In their previous complaints, ENORB had already highlighted examples of such unfair and discriminatory stories.

In this complaint, ENORB stated:

“We note that this article’s thumbnail image depicts two Muslim women in relation with the message about coronavirus, which may mislead readers and imply, albeit indirectly, a link between these women and the concept of the article. It is probable that the person responsible for the choice of this image did not choose it with the intention to convey this link; incidentally, this is precisely the problem. Furthermore, in light of Muslim women’s stigmatisation in the media context, alongside the prevalence of hate targeting Muslim communities and falsely accusing them of spreading the virus, the media ought to be more mindful of the images they choose and their impact. We hope that the thumbnail image will be modified and rest at your disposable to help with any efforts to develop more equitable editing patterns and image choices.”

Thanks to ENORB’s complaint, La RTBF have substituted the image in question, offering the following response:

“Your message has reached us and attracted our full attention.

We ask you to kindly excuse us for this late response; we receive a lot of emails.

The photo in question had been published in this article by mistake; it was indeed unrelated to the subject matter at hand. As such, it has been withdrawn. 

 We ask you to excuse La RTBF for the committed error.”