BBC upholds complaint against calling Hamas terrorists

The BBC has upheld a complaint against a presenter who referred to Hamas as “the terror group”, purportedly contrary to the BBC’s editorial policy.

The complaint relates to a segment on the BBC News channel on 15th June.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “For the BBC to uphold a complaint against a presenter for daring to call Hamas a ‘terror group’ is nothing short of Orwellian. That is exactly what Hamas is, and it is proscribed as such in the UK. The police arrest counter-protesters for saying it, and now the BBC is penalising a journalist for doing so. When did Britain become a country in which we censor the truth and deny the law of the land?

“The BBC has a duty to report accurately. Calling Hamas terrorists is to discharge that duty; doing the opposite is a dereliction. It risks obscuring the truth, misleading audiences and undermining public understanding of terrorism and world events.

“The broadcaster has referred to other organisations as terrorists in the past, so why the double standard? Hamas committed the worst antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust and still holds hostages in Gaza: what more does it need to do to Jews for the BBC to acknowledge that it is a terrorist group?”