Savage assigned "code word" for South Asians: "terrorist[s]"

Summary: On his radio program, Michael Savage read from a New York Times article about the arrest of 17 Canadian residents on charges that they were planning a terrorist attack, noting that one of the suspects is a "well-known and fiery figure ... in the Toronto area's South Asian community" and the imam of a mosque. Savage then declared: "Whenever you see the word 'South Asian,' substitute the word for 'terrorist,' or reference to 'terrorist.' " Savage then reclassified the word "imam," stating, "that's another code word for trouble-making bum who should have been thrown out of the country."

On the June 5 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Michael Savage read from a June 4 New York Times article about the arrest of 17 Canadian residents on charges that they were planning a terrorist attack. Savage noted that, according to the article, one of the suspects is a "well-known and fiery figure ... in the Toronto area's South Asian community" and the imam of a mosque. Savage then declared: "Whenever you see the word 'South Asian,' substitute the word for 'terrorist,' or reference to 'terrorist.' " Savage then reclassified the word "imam," stating, "that's another code word for trouble-making bum who should have been thrown out of the country."

As Media Matters for America has noted, Savage recently stated that based on an "ordinary Muslim" caller's views about the war in Iraq and fading phone signal, he must have been using a cell phone "made over there in a bomb factory in the Gaza Strip."

From the June 5 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: "Tarek Fatah, the communications director [laughter] of the Muslim Canadian Congress [laughter], a national group [laughter], said that Mr. Jamal, the oldest of the suspects, is a well-known and fiery figure" -- I love the phrase, fiery figure -- "in the Toronto area's South Asian community." Let me pause right here. Whenever you see the word "South Asian," substitute the word for "terrorist," or reference to "terrorist." That's the new code word, "South Asian community." And that he was the imam -- that's another code word for trouble-making bum who should have been thrown out of the country. Imam.

—L.F.

Lee Fang is an intern at Media Matters for America.