NUS President Malia Bouattia urges 'responsible reporting' after Mail corrections
NUS President Malia Bouattia has called for media outlets to report stories "responsibly and accurately" after the Daily Mail made several corrections to news stories it published about comments said by the student leader this week.
The corrections were made by the newspaper after numerous complaints were lodged against the newspaper over its coverage of the student leader in the past six months.
Speaking to Middle East Eye on Saturday, Bouattia said: "What happened to me was just a taste of what other members of the Muslim community face on a weekly if not daily basis."
Bouattia, a veteran student campaigner, told MEE she wanted to put the past Daily Mail's comments behind her and "move on".
Some of the corrections made by the newspaper were in relation to reports claiming Bouattia had said that British Muslims travelled to Syria to fight because of government cuts alone.
Other reports the right-wing outlet was forced to correct include claims that Bouattia had refused to condemn the Islamic State group and articles related to past comments where she described Birmingham University to be a "Zionist outpost".
On its website the Daily confirmed that Bouattia had indeed "condemned ISIS" and said that "young Muslims were travelling to join ISIS in Syria for reasons including government cuts to education and mass unemployment".
Bouattia made history last year after being elected as the first female Muslim person of colour to be president of the National Union of Students at their annual conference in Brighton.
Representing more than four million students, Bouattia is known for her years of campaigning against racism in British education and the UK government's Prevent agenda both locally and internationally.
In a rare move, earlier last week the Daily Mail paid more than £150,000 ($184,000) in compensation to a Muslim family over comments made by the controversial columnist Katy Hopkins.
Hopkins was also forced to apologise for her comments about the Mahmood family after she claimed in a column that the Muslim family were "extremists … linked to Al-Qaeda".
Known for her unapologetic views and describing herself as a "straight talker never to apologise," Hopkins posted an apology to the Mahmood family at 2am last Monday.
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