Western coverage of Ukraine exposes bias

GENEVA－The sharp difference in Western media coverage of the Ukraine situation and other conflicts has laid bare deep-rooted racism and double standards.

Their emphasis on the Ukrainian race and disregard for tragedies in other parts of the world have drawn criticism, particularly from the Middle East.

In their reports, numerous Western journalists have focused on the look, skin color, race and religion of Ukrainian evacuees, and made comparisons between them and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. The unspoken implication is that the former is superior to the latter and has less reason to suffer from any plight.

"To put it bluntly, these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine … They're Christian, they're white, they're very similar (to us)," said Kelly Cobiella, an NBC News correspondent based in London.

On BFM TV, France's most-watched cable news channel, journalist Philippe Corbe said: "We're not talking here about Syrians … We're talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like us to save their lives."

Since the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, remarks of racist nature have been circulating on Western media, irritating people from around the world, especially those who have fled their homes due to color revolutions waged by the West.

Mohammed al-Jubouri, a professor in the media college at Al-Iraqia University in Baghdad, said the West has been playing dumb over refugee issues in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, as well as Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory－as if people in those places were inherently inferior and unworthy of respect.

A military conflict taking place on a so-called civilized continent has shocked most Western journalists, and this also partly lies in the penetration of West-centrism across the media industry. But the theory of their behavior is plainly grounded upon race superiority.

When reporting from Kyiv in late February, Charlie D'Agata, a senior foreign correspondent with CBS News, said: "This isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades", but "a relatively civilized, relatively European" city.

Apparent truth

The truth is apparent in how Western governments and media view the conflict in Ukraine, a country they have abandoned, in comparison to the wars they waged in particular against West Asian countries, stated an opinion article published in Iran's Tehran Times.

The United Nations refugee agency said it welcomed the response by advanced countries to the Ukrainian refugee crisis and urged them to act in a similar way toward refugees from other war zones, regardless of nationality, race or religion.

The UN's International Organization for Migration also issued a warning on people traffickers.

"We know how adaptive the traffickers are to situations," IOM deputy chief Ugochi Daniels said.

"We've heard anecdotes of people just walking up to you and offering a ride in their personal car."

Daniels also cautioned of the danger of being lured away with false promises of job offers, pointing out that 50 percent of queries asked on a hotline set up by the UN agency are "actually about trafficking".

Xinhua - Agencies