A producer for Al Jazeera America generated controversy on Friday when he slammed ABC for showing the face of Tafsheen Malik, one of the Islamist terrorists who killed 14 people in San Bernardino this past Tuesday.
ABC’s picture of Malik without her usual full burqa appeared to anger Said, who tweeted “Come on ABC…the family attorney says #TafsheenMalik wore a burqa that covered her face, and you’re putting out pictures of her without it?” Said defended the tweet (which he later deleted) by arguing that “If she was wearing a burqa that covers her face, it’s disrespectful to show a pic without.” (RELATED: Terrorist Wife Donned Burqa, Described As ‘Caring’ And ‘Typical Housewife’ Who Was ‘Assimilating Fine’ [VIDEO])
Twitter users were quick to call Said out for what they viewed as a double standard. “You know what is really disrespectful? Killing 14 mom,dads, husbands,wives, who are eating pie,” one person tweeted. “Yeah, we should always defend mass murderers,” another said.
Said later argued he meant it was “disrespectful of the culture and to her family” to show Malik’s face. He then dismissed his critics as having “no idea how respecting a culture works” and accusing them of being “racist” and “bigoted” before again claiming that showing the terrorist’s face “could be disrespectful to her family.”
Said apparently considered himself to be the victim in the whole affair, bemoaning “Why does this always happen to me on a Friday?” One user quickly offered up an answer: “Because you chose to sympathize with a mass murderer on a Friday?”
Said later gave a quasi-apology for “causing any offense or disrespect,” saying he “should have exercised more tact and precision.”