Political commentator Peter Oborne on his blog notes the amount of extreme anti-Muslim posts made under his article in defence of Baroness Warsi in last week’s Daily Telegraph which attracted more than 1,600 online comments.
He writes: "Put bluntly, many of them were so offensive that they show that Sayeeda Warsi indeed had a point when she drew attention to a real social problem in this country: an irrational and phobic hatred of Muslims.
"Of the total of 1,633 comments, some 201 attacked me personally. I counted exactly 36 (just over 2 per cent) which were in support of my general point of view. So, many thanks to my 36 allies!
"Some 1,238 comments were generally anti-Muslim, approximately 200 virulently so. I recognise, of course, that these are not the voices of ordinary Telegraph readers: discussions of this sort are regularly infiltrated by extremists. Nevertheless, the majority of those who left comments seemed comfortable labelling an entire section of British society undesirable because of the actions of a tiny and unrepresentative minority."
Oborne's blog post is headlined: "If you're looking for Islamophobia, try the comments under my article about Baroness Warsi."
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