Fox News ‘terrorism expert’ blunder inspires #FoxNewsFacts hashtag

12 Jan 2015

Fox News' Lauren Green speaks to Steven Emerson. Photo via YouTube

Twitter users have taken to the social network to mock right-wing US news channel Fox News for an on-air gaffe that saw a ‘terrorism expert’ claim that non-Muslims do not go to the UK city of Birmingham.

Appearing in a segment covering the recent attacks in Paris, Steven Emerson, the author of six books, also claimed that in London there are religious police that attack people who are not wearing Islamic clothes.

“In Britain, it’s not just no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in,” Emerson told Fox News’s chief religion correspondent Lauren Green.

“And, parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire.

“So there’s a situation that Western Europe is not dealing with.”

According to a 2011 census, Muslims actually make-up about 20pc of Birmingham’s population.

Fox News has been frequently accused of perpetuating Islamophobia in the past, including Green’s interview with respected author Reza Aslan who appeared on the channel’s online show Spirited Debate to promote his book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth only to be bombarded with questions about why a Muslim would write a book about Jesus.

Emerson has since apologised for the comments, but it hasn’t stopped Twitter users from poking fun at claims with their own series of “facts” relating to Islam and, in particular, Islam’s place in British society. Below are some of the best.

Dean Van Nguyen was a contributor to Silicon Republic

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