Ireland's longest-serving imam has warned that sections of the media have been singling out Islam and Muslims here for hostile attention since the London bombings last July. "Ireland's media had been very sensitive for very many years, and fair" up to then, Sheikh Yahya Al Hussein said yesterday.
Since July, however, "some Muslims have been singled out" for particular media attention in Ireland and Muslim-related stories had been subject to "exaggeration".
He referred to recent controversies over Muslim schools at Cabra and Clonskeagh in Dublin and the "negative coverage about their boards of management which didn't deserve that much attention".
Some journalists had gone as far as seeking correspondence between the boards and the Department of Education under the Freedom of Information Act, he said.
He had no objection to criticisms of Islam on the part of some columnists. "They have a right to be critical," he said, and Muslims were "not afraid of free and open debate. We have strong arguments."
He opposed the publication of cartoons depicting Muhammad in some European papers. "It was not right. The issue is not just about [ portraying] the prophet." It was "about portraying him as a terrorist", which was "something that was insulting to all Muslims" not least as "it implied that all Muslims were terrorists", he said.
Muslims accepted the principle of freedom of expression but did not believe that was at issue in this controversy.
"Politicians and the media know there are limits," he said. He had no problem with the depiction of Muhammad in documents at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. They were "part of the history of Islam".
