http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/08/convert-die-ethnic-cleansing-car-150811130050880.html
QuoteMuslims are only newsworthy when behind the gun, not in front of it.
Modern journalism continually reaffirms this baseline with regards to domestic crises and, perhaps even more so, international human rights calamities.
The systematic targeting of Muslims in the Central African Republic (CAR), a nation ravaged by strife since March of 2013, has devolved into massive scale ethnic cleansing.
However, few outside of the African nation and beyond the human rights community are even minimally aware of this humanitarian crisis.
In the past several weeks, armed militias have roved through the western part of the nation,intimidating and brutalising Muslims.
Anti-Balaka, a fundamentalist group comprised of animists and Christians, is forcing Muslims to worship in private, remove religious garb, and convert at gunpoint.
While the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) remains in the headlines and at the tip of everyone's tongue, the mere mention of anti-Muslim terrorism in CAR - which has claimed at least 6,000 lives, pushed 30,000 Muslims to live in UN protected enclaves, and left scores of mosques destroyed - remains a largely unknown menace.
This would not be the case if Muslims were the villains of the human rights atrocities in CAR, instead of victims.
But it doesn't effect us, our interests or our agendas so it's not really news worthy... is it?