POLITICALITE – OUSTED TROLL OF THE MONTH

The Troll of the Month is an incident we choose every month to expose racist and anti-religious haters and to show the positive outcomes in the fight against intolerance in Europe.

A populist British news website has corrected a misleading figure after GTTO partner Media Diversity Institute sent a complaint to them. 

On 15 November, the far wing news site Politicalite published an opinion piece arguing for a ban on immigrants from Pakistan using assumptions based on misinterpreted figures. 

The first paragraph of the article initially stated “nine in ten of the street children in Pakistan had been sexually abused by Pakistani adults as part of a regular and publically known paedophilic culture that has deep roots into the country.”

This figure was said to be taken from a Channel 4 press release about a documentary called “Pakistan’s Hidden Shame”, which was broadcast in 2014. But the data in the press release actually refers to a specific city in Pakistan, not to the whole country.

The documentary press release stated: “This film focuses on the north-western city of Peshawar, where it is estimated 9 out of every 10 street children have been sexually abused.”

Get The Trolls Out! partner Media Diversity Institute wrote to Politicalite with a complaint regarding this issue and they responded. The article has been changed to reflect the correct information, and it has also been written up on the website's corrections page.

By using misleading data, the author was able to depict a very negative picture of Pakistan, and based upon this, make the xenophobic suggestion no immigrants from Pakistan should be allowed to enter Britain. 

Even with this correction, however, the article remains deeply hateful against Muslims. While most of the article focuses on the issue raised by the documentary, the headline and the final paragraphs are spiteful against Muslims and Pakistani men. 

By saying “If We Want To Stop Child Abuse, We Need To BAN Immigration From Pakistan”, the author implies that all Pakistani men in Britain are abusers (which is false) and that sexual abuse of children is committed only by Pakistani men (which is false). 

These lies, together with a heavily inflammatory language (“epidemic of predominantly Pakistani child rapists”, “strong propensity for child sex”, “real cultural horror of the truly cemented paedophilic tendencies”), fuel prejudices against residents and citizens of Pakistani origins.