Pollster Survation Hits Back At The Sun’s Jihadi ‘Support’ Coverage

Survation, the polling company who conducted a survey into Muslim attitudes to fighters in Syria, have distanced themselves from the controversial coverage in The Sun.

The newspaper claimed in a headline that one in five Muslims had sympathy for jihadis, highlighting the results in the survey that was taken after the Paris terror attacks.

But they were widely criticised by other papers and on social media for the way they presented the findings.

The word ‘jihadis’ was not used in any of the questions and the way they were worded meant that support for fighters in Syria may have been for those who are fighting terrorists in ISIS.

Now Survation have released a statement about The Sun’s coverage, stating that the results need to be compared to be compared to the attitudes of non-Muslims.

The company said: “There is a distinction between the work we do and how clients chose to present this work.

“Survation do not support or endorse the way in which this poll’s findings have been interpreted.

“Neither the headline nor the body text of articles published were discussed with or approved by Survation prior to publication.”

The company went on to say that support had actually gone down and highlighted the results of a poll that was taken earlier this year.

They added: “This latest poll in fact shows a fall in sympathy with fighters travelling to Syria among Muslims since March, something which we would consider the most pertinent new finding of that particular question.”

The Sun hit back at critics of the poll, writing in today’s paper: “It is shocking and depressing that even after the Paris slaughter one in five British Muslims we surveyed still has sympathy with young people who fly to Syria to become jihadist killers.

“It is depressing too that many others would rather not face up to that fact, preferring to rubbish The Sun’s poll rather than deal with what is uncovered.”