London: The Sun British tabloid newspaper has corrected a story, which claimed a Muslim train driver went through a red light and crashed because he had been fasting for 15 hours, according to UK Press Gazette.
The story was headlined “Ramadan train driver in crash” and was published on August 20. It followed a derailment at Paddington station in June.
The correction follows an adjudication by press watchdog IPSO. The correction said: “In a story ‘Ramadan Train Driver in Crash’ we implied that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch said the cause of the derailment at Paddington was that the driver had been fasting during Ramadan."
“In fact, they were unable to conclude that fasting was a factor in the crash on the evidence available, although they observed that there is research showing that fasting can affect people’s concentration levels", it added.
"It was also stated that the driver of a derailed train ran through TWO red lights at London’s Paddington Station", the paper said.
"In fact the two red lights were on the same signal. We are happy to clarify", it said.
Complainant Miqdaad Versis, a management consultant who is assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “Creating a link to the faith of the driver and the Islamic act of fasting without any evidence is totally unacceptable."
“In today’s environment where Islamophobia and bigotry have become more and more normalized, I hope the Sun will avoid creating stories that unfairly depict Muslims as the ‘bad guy’ and will introduce safeguards to deter future inaccuracies", he added.
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