Post by buccaneer on Oct 12, 2023 8:44:53 GMT
Four of Britain’s top lawyers complain to Ofcom about BBC stance on Hamas
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/bbc-not-calling-hamas-terrorists-ofcom-top-lawyers/
The BBC are sympathisers towards Hamas and because of this and not the legal fact that Hamas are proscribed due to their terroristic tendencies the BBC are therefore now partial.
Four of Britain’s most senior lawyers have accused the BBC of abandoning impartiality by refusing to describe Hamas as “terrorists”.
In a letter to Ofcom, Lord Wolfson KC, Lord Pannick KC, Lord Grabiner KC and Jeremy Brier KC urged the regulator to investigate the corporation.
They said that the BBC had taken sides and described Hamas in “more sympathetic terms”.
The four co-signed the letter alongside Lord Polak, honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel.
They said: “On 7th October 2023, Hamas launched a large invasion of the State of Israel which resulted variously in the slaughter, rape and abduction of over a thousand Israeli citizens.
“There is nothing controversial about that. It is a fact.
“The BBC has fallen well below the standards expressed in its Editorial Values in reporting of that invasion and the consequences therefrom.”
They claimed that “it is beyond doubt that the BBC has not shown impartiality in terms of the nomenclature it uses to refer to Hamas as ‘militants’.”
The authors of the letter said that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK and “that is not a matter of debate or discussion. It is a matter of legal fact.
“The question then arises: how can it be impartial (i.e. not taking sides) to describe an organisation in terms which departs from established legal meaning and substitutes a word which refers to an organisation which is violent or aggressive but not necessarily engaged in terrorism and not necessarily proscribed? In short, by a significantly ‘watered-down’ descriptor which is less legally precise.
“The answer is it cannot be impartial to do so. It necessarily involves the BBC ‘stepping into the arena’ and taking sides so as to describe Hamas in more sympathetic terms.
“Put another way: in trying to be impartial, the BBC has become partial.”
In a letter to Ofcom, Lord Wolfson KC, Lord Pannick KC, Lord Grabiner KC and Jeremy Brier KC urged the regulator to investigate the corporation.
They said that the BBC had taken sides and described Hamas in “more sympathetic terms”.
The four co-signed the letter alongside Lord Polak, honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel.
They said: “On 7th October 2023, Hamas launched a large invasion of the State of Israel which resulted variously in the slaughter, rape and abduction of over a thousand Israeli citizens.
“There is nothing controversial about that. It is a fact.
“The BBC has fallen well below the standards expressed in its Editorial Values in reporting of that invasion and the consequences therefrom.”
They claimed that “it is beyond doubt that the BBC has not shown impartiality in terms of the nomenclature it uses to refer to Hamas as ‘militants’.”
The authors of the letter said that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK and “that is not a matter of debate or discussion. It is a matter of legal fact.
“The question then arises: how can it be impartial (i.e. not taking sides) to describe an organisation in terms which departs from established legal meaning and substitutes a word which refers to an organisation which is violent or aggressive but not necessarily engaged in terrorism and not necessarily proscribed? In short, by a significantly ‘watered-down’ descriptor which is less legally precise.
“The answer is it cannot be impartial to do so. It necessarily involves the BBC ‘stepping into the arena’ and taking sides so as to describe Hamas in more sympathetic terms.
“Put another way: in trying to be impartial, the BBC has become partial.”
The BBC are sympathisers towards Hamas and because of this and not the legal fact that Hamas are proscribed due to their terroristic tendencies the BBC are therefore now partial.
