A Saudi student studying in the United States on the King Abdullah Scholarship Program was injured in the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday. The student was one of at least two Saudi nationals hospitalized as a result of the attack. One of the victim’s friends told Al Arabiya that an amputation was almost required but ultimately not needed to save an injured leg.
A humorous response on Twitter to the New York Post’s tweet correcting its earlier item.
We are learning more about the injured Saudis and their health as time passes after this attack. But before we knew any of this tragic information, reports in some media outlets were saying that a Saudi had been detained and was being questioned as a suspect. Twitter, which on Monday often served as more of a rumor mill than a source for real information, didn’t make things better, and shortly thereafter several outlets were re-reporting the false news.
Like all those unfortunately injured or present at the crime scene in Boston on Monday, police are understandably seeking as much information as they can from all sources – including the injured Saudis – about the bombings. And these Saudis are, according to the Washington Post which citied a Saudi official, “fully cooperating with authorities” and volunteering to allow authorities to search their homes. By late Tuesday, it was official; these two Saudis were not considered suspects in the perpetration of these heinous attacks. One can safely assume that these Saudis want the perpetrator of these crimes caught and prosecuted as badly as anyone else.
Laid bare in the inaccurate rumors of Saudi involvement is the unsightly reality of the persistent negative perceptions about Saudi Arabia and Muslims that many Americans still hold, and how some right-leaning media outlets in the U.S. are happy to keep these misperceptions going. In this way, it is somewhat ironic that a Saudi student on the King Abdullah Scholarship program found himself in the middle of a storm of false accusations. That is because the booming scholarship program, which is one of King Abdullah’s strongest legacies, was created in part to allow for greater cultural and social interaction between Saudis and Americans. King Abdullah knew that by sending Saudis to the United States for higher education, they could bring back into the Kingdom a global view of the world and leave behind a greater understanding and friendship between Saudis and Americans. King Abdullah issued a strongly worded condemnation of the bombings yesterday and expressed solidarity with the United States, noting that attacks like this belong to no religion.
The Drudge Report, a heavily-conservative leaning news aggregator, also included links to the false report.
It is not hard to understand what Americans were wondering about the Boston Marathon bombings as they engaged their web browsers, social media accounts and televisions: could this be an act of Islamic extremism? Were Saudi citizens involved individually or as a group just like the 9/11 attacks?
Shortly after the bombings took place on Monday afternoon at around 4:30PM, the New York Post ran a story citing an unnamed source that said that authorities had detained a Saudi suspect for questioning. Other sources picked up the story and Twitter took off with tweets and retweets indicating that a man had been caught and he was a Saudi. For a moment at least, it appeared that 10 years of increased understanding between the US and Saudi Arabia following 9/11 would be threatened by one renegade bad apple from Saudi Arabia.
Another conservative media outlet, the Daily Caller, used images of the 9/11 attackers for the story.
However, the origin of this unsubstantiated “news” was still the New York Post – known more for its offensive tabloid cover art and Page 6 society news than being a well-rounded and credible outlet. Other news sites, particularly the right-leaning sites The Daily Caller and Drudge Report, appeared more than willing to run with the reporting but neither was able or willing to independently confirm it at the time. The Daily Caller even ran the item on its website and used as the lead photo the 15 of Saudis who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks in a shameful and irresponsible association.
Skepticism was revived about the report when a spokesman for Boston’s police department flat out denied the New York Post report, saying, “Honestly, I don’t know where they’re getting their information from.” By then, damage had been done, with the greatest damage ultimately being inflicted on the New York Post’s reputation. Although this was the ugliest of that outlet’s mistakes yesterday, it was indeed one of many (the New York Post also published several incorrect death counts on its website, as documented by the Washington Post here). By the evening news hour on Monday night, a more credible source in CBS News had continued to carry the inaccurate report, which allowed the misinformation to continue until it was finally debunked today by authorities (with real information).
“The New York Post is either the most well-sourced newspaper in the country, the luckiest paper in the country, or an awful rag stirring up hate for Muslims,” wrote Connor Simpson in The Atlantic, before the rumor was officially debunked. “So the Post is either so far ahead of the story the story or wrong in the worst possible way.”
It didn’t take long for sensibility to return, thankfully.
“What made them suspect him?” asked Amy Davidson in The New Yorker. “He was running—so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb—as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead—a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?”
The 9/11 attacks significantly damaged Saudi Arabia’s image in the United States. It has taken years since the attacks for Saudi Arabia to prove that it is a willing and capable partner in fighting global extremism, not to mention a strong regional diplomatic ally, an emerging economic powerhouse and member of the G20, and major trading partner of the US. The Saudi government is the purchaser of the largest US arms sale in history, and Saudi trade with the United States recently reached an all-time high.
In a statement released by the Saudi Embassy in Washington Saudi Ambassador to Washington Adel Al-Jubeir (who himself was the target of a thwarted bombing attempt in Washington) strongly condemned the bombings in Boston and offered his condolences to the families of the victims. He also expressed his wishes for the full and speedy recovery of all those injured. “What occurred today in Boston is a heinous crime which contradicts the values of humanity,” according to SUSRIS.com, which carried the embassy press release. The ambassador’s remarks underscore that Saudi Arabia and the United States shares extremism as a common enemy.
With this terrible crime still unresolved, Americans grieve for those directly affected and to express solidarity with the victims, the first responders, and the city of Boston.
