The Sun Front Page: Reactions To 'Muslims’ Support For Jihadis’ Poll

Today’s front page of The Sun claiming that one in five British Muslims sympathise with the actions of jihadis has provoked a strong reaction in both the media and on social media.

The paper’s shock survey, taken after the Paris terror attacks, shows that 19% of those polled had ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ of sympathy towards young Muslims who eave the UK to join fighters in Syria.

Notable figures in the Muslim community described the poll as a “wake-up call”.

The paper quoted Labour MP and London Mayor hopeful Sadiq Khan, who said: “It is clear that Britain needs to take its head out of the sand and act to tackle extremism and radicalisation at home.”

Omar Elhamdoon, of the Muslim Association of Britain, added: “Those who do have sympathy have a warped understanding of what is happening out there.”

Michael Heaver, an aide to UKIP leader Nigel Farage, also tweeted his support for the story:

However, the results have been widely questioned by several other newspapers, who describe the poll as “misleading”.

The Mirror said that the questions “did not mention jihadis anywhere” and did not specify whether the sympathy went to fighters who joined ISIS or other groups who are trying to combat the terror group.

They wrote: “Many Brits who have travelled to Syria to fight have joined these other groups - not ISIS.

“And while some of the other groups certainly have a jihadist contingent, most are focused on removing President Bashar Al-Assad from power, rather than the creation of a fanatical, fundamentalist Islamic caliphate in the region.”

The Independent’s Jon Stone agreed with that analysis, adding that non-Muslims would “provide very similar responses”.

He wrote: “The same poll question, asked for Sky News in March to all GB residents – found that 14 per cent of the general population had some “sympathy” for young Muslims leaving to fight in Syria.”

The Guardian questioned the use of the word “sympathy” and how it could be interpreted.

They wrote: The term “sympathy” is open to misinterpretation: while one person might take this to mean that they share the opinion of those going to fight, a second could simply mean that they understood on an emotional level that someone would choose to do so. One can have sympathy for a position but not agree with it.”

Mike Smithson, from politcalbetting.com took a closer look at the data and found that one UK Muslim in 20 has some level of support for those who go to Syria to join fighters:

Kieran Pedley told the website that The Sun’s headline was “unhelpful”.

He wrote: In this piece I do not seek to play down the scale of the threat posed to our national security from Islamist terrorism. It is real and needs to be dealt with at home and abroad.

“However, the media has a real responsibility not to make things worse and today’s Sun splash was unhelpful in that regard and unjustified based on the data it was based on.

“After all, using the same data, it could just as easily have said ‘Just 1 in 20 British Muslims sympathise with those travelling to Syria’. I will leave others to judge why it did not.”

Reaction on social media has been generally negative to both The Sun and the poll, which some described as “manipulative” and “misleading”: