Never mind that it’s true. In Islamic law, it is considered a good thing to conceal the faults of a fellow Muslim, as Muhammad said: “The servant (who conceals) the faults of others in this world, Allah would conceal his faults on the Day of Resurrection” (Sahih Muslim 32.6267). The ordinary understanding of slander in the West is that it involves making false charges that defame another person. But in Islamic law, the definition of slander doesn’t involve falsehood. The Shafi’i manual of Islamic law Reliance of the Traveller defines “slander” as “to mention anything concerning a person that he would dislike.” Nothing is said about whether or not what is said is true — only that the person would dislike it. And as the Qur’an warns, “Woe unto every slandering traducer” (104:1).
“Pak Paper Said London Attacker Is Of ‘Pak Origin’. Mob Attacks Offices,” Press Trust of India, December 3, 2019:
Dozens of protesters carrying banners and chanting slogans against a Pakistani newspaper tried to storm its offices in Islamabad, enraged over the leading daily’s news report in which the London Bridge attacker was identified as a “man of Pakistani origin”.
The Dawn newspaper in its headline had identified Usman Khan, a convicted Islamist terrorist from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir who stabbed two people to death in a terror attack on London Bridge last week, as “UK national of Pakistani origin”, unlike many other local dailies which said he was born and brought up in Britain and had no link with Pakistan.
A few dozen unidentified people on Monday staged a protest outside Dawn offices in Islamabad over publication of a news report regarding the ethnicity of the London Bridge attacker of last week, the paper reported on Tuesday.
They were apparently angered by the headline of newspaper last week in which it identified Usman Khan as a man of Pakistani origin.
The angry mob, carrying banners and chanting slogans against the newspaper, remained outside the office building for nearly three hours, besieging the premises and making the staffers hostage, the report said.
They prevented the employees from entering or leaving the building and demanded a written apology. Some of the protesters also misbehaved with the newspaper as well as Dawn TV employees when they arrived at the office.
Security guards at the media house had to lock the gates to prevent the protesters from entering the premises before police and officers of the capital administration arrived.
After lengthy negotiations with the newspaper management in the presence of an assistant commissioner, the protesters finally agreed to disperse after hurling warnings….