I’ve got other things I’m working on this morning, but have put them on hold so I can blow off steam! A reader just sent me this story….grrrrr!
Wall Street Journal reporter Miriam Jordan writes ‘authoritatively’ on Muslim refugees going to”welcoming” Utah and fails to mention the horrific murder case that dragged on for years in Salt Lake City.
Some of the best reporting I’ve seen on refugees in my over 8 years of following the issue was done by Julia Lyon a reporter at the time for the Salt Lake Tribune.
Surely, Ms. Jordan was aware of the case, but mentioning it might mess up her goal in reporting on how everything is just wonderful with Muslim refugees in Utah (and so what is wrong with you in your not-so-welcoming state).
In 2008 a Burmese Muslim refugee raped and murdered a little Christian refugee girl. The medical examiner testified that she died in “excruciating pain” and first responders said the apartment where her body was found “looked like a horror scene.”
Met was ultimately found guilty in 2014.
Perhaps one of the greatest shames, besides some naive refugee resettlement agency placing Muslim refugees in the same apartment complex as Christians (who had hated each other in Burma!***), is that no major US media outlet ever picked up the story. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the ‘story’ they want to tell about refugee resettlement in America.
In Ms. Jordan’s case her title tells us everything we need to know: ‘With Welcoming Stance, Conservative Utah Charts Its Own Course on Refugees.’ The implication of course is that if “conservative” Utah can welcome Muslims, why can’t you!
She reports that there are no organized pockets of resistance in Utah.
And, her article (here if you can even open it) confirms once again the reason I started writing this blog in 2007. Now there are many many good writers and bloggers ‘balancing’ the news on refugees, but back in 2007, I was so sick of the fluffy stories that it drove me to bring some balance to the news. Guess I’ll just have to keep on balancing the news!
And, you can be sure that if someone writes about Utah and doesn’t mention Muslim murderer Met, I will be pointing it out. Met is most likely a Burmese Rohingya Muslim (very devout Muslims) and we are admitting thousands to the US right now.
***Btw, reporter Julia Lyon went to the camp in Thailand and found out that these two groups (Christians and Muslims) were housed in separate sections of the camp for good reason!
