‘Don’t let Charlie Hebdo Be Seen As A Victim’ Says Buzzfeed Political Reporter

Buzzfeed’s ‘Political Reporter’ accused Charlie Hebdo of “goading” Muslims and “mocking” Islamic values in an article published in Muslim News shortly after the last attack on the magazine’s office. Siraj Datoo warned his readers,“don’t let Charlie Hebdo be seen as a victim”.

The article dated 25th November 2011 has been removed from the website of Muslim News without any explanation. His article came just weeks after Charlie Hebdo’s office had been fire bombed and their website hacked. The incident led to a beefing up of security around senior staff, including the placing of a police protection officer on the editor, Charb.

Mr Datoo said of the firebomb attack: “Now Charlie Hebdo has started to act the martyr”. He said the Mohammed edition of the magazine was “simply an attempt to mock perceived Islamic values, rather than to make a serious point”.

He also claimed the left wing magazine was part of the “the right-wing Islamophobic trend that has been sweeping the country”. He failed to point out that Charlie Hebdo was equally critical of the Catholic Church and a variety of politicians in France.

Datoo continued: “This issue was direct goading and I argue that the primary aim was to create controversy… Perhaps the political leaders should now be asking whether they have indeed gone too far with their attack on Islam and should instead be concentrating on real matters that affect the nation.”

Yesterday Datoo expressed his sadness at the terrorist attack in which 12 people died. However, according to Guido Fawkes this did not prove popular amongst his friends with one posting a Facebook message saying: “You wrote that the magazine itself was provocative, and that in itself was a bad thing. You questioned its right to exist because of the fact that it offended. For shame if you can’t feel it”.

Mr Datoo describes himself as a Political Reporter at Buzzfeed but previously worked at the Guardian and Muslim News. His original article is still on his website.