Who cares about Sarah Hussein?

By Pete North - August 7, 2021

Sarah Hussein, 31, was severely injured from burns when she was found ablaze on East Street, Bury, at about 19:30 BST on 31 July and died later in hospital. Locals had run to help her and wrapped her in a wet duvet. Three men, aged 24, 26 and 34, who were arrested have been bailed pending further inquiries, police said.

We do not know much more than that. It was provisionally reported a few days ago in the local press as a murder investigation. There has been no explicit retraction of that but no confirmation either. A dedicated “Major Incident Portal” has been set up. Subsequent reports are few and say nothing more than the police press release.

Thus far the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has said nothing. The two Bury MPs have said nothing. Leading feminist MPs have said nothing. No major newspapers have covered it save for a stub article in The Mirror. Not a single journalist has taken any interest in it, save for a mention on Twitter by GB News’s Colin Brazier.

Any of the surrounding circumstances have been withheld. The BBC reports that she was “found on fire” while ITV describes her as “Bury fire victim” as though she merely perished in a house fire despite it bearing all the hallmarks of an honour killing.

When a pretty white girl was murdered by a white policeman in London, middle class England came to a standstill, holding vigils and parliamentary debates. Sarah Hussein is set on fire (seemingly by three Pakistani men in Bury) and there’s absolute silence. She wasn’t even worth a Twitter hashtag until I started one.

I imagined that perhaps Stella Creasy or Sarah Champion might have said something. After all, Ms Creasy was tweeting about a vigil for Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman. It appears though, that it’s only as a political stick with which to beat the police over their lack of interest and poor handling of the case which, they say, further evidences their claim of institutional racism. Two police officers were charged with misconduct in public office by taking “non-official and inappropriate photographs” of the murder scene. Both officers were suspended from duty.

One is now given to wonder just how much of the controversy over Sarah Everard was manufactured as a political device being that her killer was a serving policeman at the Met. Unfortunately for Sarah Hussein, there is nothing politically useful to the metropolitan left in her death and she had the misfortune to be (we assume) murdered outside of the M25. Sarah Everard got a parliamentary debate, acres of news columns and a candlelit vigil. Sarah Hussein gets a shrug of indifference.

I could be wrong about all this, and there may be some other reason Sarah Hussein happened to be on fire in broad daylight, though if it had been a household accident that much would have been reported. What’s disturbing beyond the lack of coverage is that the most recent report feels like a round-off with no anticipation of further action. Three men were bailed by no reason is given why. If the Greater Manchester Police wanted to sweep it under the carpet, they could do so and nobody would give it a second thought. If we let them.

For all that we have heard endless chatter about violence against women and girls in the wake of the Rotherham and Rochdale scandals, less is said of the other victims of south Asian men. White girls finally matter, black lives matter, but Muslim women remain out of sight and out of mind. The BBC can’t even bring themselves to say Sarah was murdered. Could they even be bothered to go and find out? Everything thus far is a copy and paste.

I’m starting to think we shall hear no more of this case and all these questions will remain unanswered. We’re now at a point where a woman can be murdered in the most cruel and horrific way imaginable, akin with an ISIS style execution on the streets of Bury and it’s not considered newsworthy by the national newspapers. Not Mogadishu. Not Soweto. Bury, Lancashire, England. Just another statistic. Not even more important than Olympic jogging according to the premier national left wing newspaper.

Sarah Hussein’s life, it would seem, doesn’t matter. We are all damned.