Madam, – Nicolas Johnson (November 10th) knows very well that Nidal Hasan’s religion is mentioned in news reports of the Fort Hood massacre because it is likely it is a motivating factor for his crimes. The shooting at an office building in Florida on the same day was not, according to best available evidence, religiously motivated; hence, news reports don’t mention the suspect’s religion.
The Florida suspect, Jason Rodriguez, is alleged to have been embittered by losing his job, an entirely different motivating factor. Ought this fact not to be reported to avoid maligning the unemployed?
When a non-Muslim does commit a religiously motivated crime, the news media reports his or her faith, or distortion of it, as relevant information. Two such examples came to mind: the murder this summer of the Kansas abortion provider, Dr George Tiller, with which an alleged member of the (Christian) “Army of God”, Scott Roeder, has been charged; and the death in Wisconsin in 2008 of 11-year-old Madeline Neumann, whose evangelical Christian parents, rather than take her to a hospital, held firm to their belief that “healing comes from God” and chose instead to pray over her as she lay dying (of undiagnosed diabetes) on the floor of their home.
I do not recall any disquiet regarding the mention of the Christian religion in the news reports of the deaths of George Tiller or Madeline Neumann. Similarly, if a Muslim commits a religiously motivated crime, society must acknowledge it and challenge it, not fret about putting the words “Muslim” and “crime” in the same news report.
Fear of acknowledging and addressing the fact that Nidal Hasan harboured religious-based animosity for the US Army contributed to the deaths of those 13 people at Fort Hood. – Yours, etc,