ANGER OVER SUN ARTICLE RULING

THE INDEPENDENT Press Standards Organisation has rejected a complaint by the Board of Deputies over an article in the Sun which referred to “the Muslim problem”.

The decision left the Board stunned, with one of its officers insisting IPSO’s editors’ code of practice was “unfit for purpose”.

The article, written by political columnist Trevor Kavanagh in August, claimed that British authorities had disregarded “Muslim sex crimes”. Mr Kavanagh ended the piece: “What will we do about The Muslim Problem then?”

The complaint, jointly filed by the Board and Tell Mama, a Muslim organisation, and the interfaith group Faith Matters, stated: “The printing of the phrase ‘The Muslim Problem’ — particularly with the capitalisation and italics for emphasis — in a national newspaper sets a dangerous precedent, and harks back to the use of the phrase ‘The Jewish Problem’ in the last century, to which the Nazis responded with ‘The Final Solution’ — the Holocaust.”

The complainants alleged that the article breached sections 1 and 12 of the editors’ code of practice which relate to accuracy and discrimination.

But the IPSO complaints committee found that it had not breached either clause, although the committee acknowledged that “the opinion was contentious, and capable of causing offence”.

Marie van der Zyl, the vice-president of the Board, said the ruling showed the editor’s code of practice was “in urgent need of redrafting”.

She said: “It is incomprehensible that the committee could at once acknowledge that the article was capable of giving serious offence, and yet conclude that there was no breach of the code.”

But one senior community source responded that “the Board have taken leave of their senses” in demanding a revision of the code.

The editors’ code of practice is unfit for purpose’