Reprehensible portrayal of a murderer as a victim

SHARES in The New York Times Company have slid from US$25 to US$6.89 in the past four years. The company has stopped making money. Its flagship newspaper has also stopped making sense when confronted with realities that do not accord with its ingrained world view.

On March 20, after Europe was rocked by a string of murders in France, the Times ran a prominent story implying the killings were a byproduct of anti-immigrant sentiment. For the Times, the greatest threat to social cohesion in France is the far right, not the demographic challenge presented by an increasingly disaffected, de-assimilating, rapidly growing Muslim minority that in several decades will become a Muslim majority.

Even after it was revealed that the killer was a Muslim who supported al-Qaeda, progressives went into overdrive to dissociate the violence from Islam. The most egregious example appeared on the ABC website and was by Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies at Oxford. He set new lows in rationalising bigotry: ''People describe [23-year old Mohammed Merah] as quiet, easy-going, nothing at all like an 'extremist jihadi Salafist' ready to kill for a religious or political cause … Religion was not [his] problem; nor is politics. A French citizen frustrated at being unable to find his place, to give his life dignity and meaning in his own country, he would find two political causes through which he could articulate his distress: Afghanistan and Palestine. He attacks symbols: the army, and kills Jews, Christians and Muslims without distinction.''

What reprehensible drivel.

Merah did not kill without distinction. He was highly specific. He wanted to kill Muslim soldiers in the French army. He wanted to kill Jews. His killings were premeditated. He filmed the murders as he carried them out, a tactic frequently used and advocated by al-Qaeda. He had a history of crime and he told police he had travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train as a jihad fighter. He had already been on a watch list of Muslim extremists, one reason the police found him quite quickly. When they approached he opened fire.

His film of the shootings was mailed to the al-Jazeera TV network. The footage depicted all seven murders, taken with a camera slung from the gunman's neck. The film had been dubbed with verses from the Koran invoking jihad and the greatness of Islam.

Merah's mother is married to Sabri Essid, a member of an underground network that recruited fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. He was convicted on terrorism charges in France in 2009. Merah's brother, Abdelkader, was also investigated. He has now been charged with complicity in the seven murders.

The more we learn about this story, the more sinister it becomes.

During Merah's time in prison he studied the Koran. The French prison system has become a fertile recruitment ground for radical Islam. Merah had also formed a connection with Forsane Alizza, Arabic for Knights of Honour, which had 2000 followers on Facebook before it was banned in January by the French Interior Ministry for inciting racial hatred.

Forsane Alizza is one of several linked groups in Europe, notably Sharia4UK and Sharia4Belgium. According to the US Pew Research Centre, about 100 million Muslims express support for al-Qaeda, including thousands in Europe.

In contrast, support for race war among the far right in Europe is minuscule. The killing rampage by a far-right gunman in Norway last year revealed no connections to a wider movement.

Forsane Alizza disavows democracy. It agitates for sharia law in Europe. Its principal targets are the French military, especially Muslims in the military, and Jews - exactly the targets Mohammed Merah selected. But Tariq Ramadan portrayed him as a frustrated, adrift, distressed, non-racist, non-political, non-religious Frenchman. A murderer of children becomes a victim.