BBC breaking news. A BBC Arabic team was arrested in Libya, taken into captivity, and beaten badly by pro-Ghadaffi supporters. Jeremy Bowen has spoken to them. Accusations of torture and the rest. BBC reports the news and now makes itself the lead story on the news.
BBC BEATEN IN LIBYA
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They’ll be begging Hague to set up a no-fly zone now.
I think they have been reading BBBC and seeing comments that they are not getting close enough to the front so, like Kate Adie, rough themselves up a bit and add a layer of dirt for effect.
They probably arranged this event deliberately, themselves, so they can say that they were right there in the danger zone.
Pro-Ghaddafi supporters beat them? Apparently the BBC Arabic service is on a different Narrative than the mother ship. The poor guys should have told their captors to watch BBC News for an hour or so and see all the criticism of anyone in favor of a no-fly zone or doing anything to stop the Brother Leader.
I do genuinely feel sorry for anyone who got hurt, though.
I am a little confused here, for people who were badly beaten they don’t seem that bad for wear. I mean lets look at the facts, a dictator who who has ruled with an iron fist since 1969, who has armed terorrists all over the world, blown aircraft out of the sky, Invaded other countries and yet 2 men who say they were arrested, locked up and badley beaten, look a lot better than the wife of Hanibal gadiffis did after he decided to teach her a lesson. Christ they look better than Binyan Mohhamed did after he spent 5 years locked away with a cut penis and he looked really well as he stepped off the plane at RAF Northholt.
Come on I’ve still carrying the scars when I came off my bike the other month, and that was just me going arse over tit on a back road and I made sure everybody saw the bruises.
I’m not saying they didn’t get picked up, but badly beaten?
Just watched it, if on SKY*.
The beef seems more that they were ‘guests’, invited in by the regime.
No doubting it must have been a horrible experience, but maybe folk might be a little more circumspect when RSVP’ing the next tyrant sofa invitation.
Again, I wouldn’t do what they do for anything, mainly because I value my hide as much as my self-respect, and a mock execution must be as psychologically traumatic as it gets.
But as to the physical aspects… from what I saw, they must have gone to Specsavers.
But as this is one of their own, I can see this one running awhile. As to accuracy…
Just hope it doesn’t hand a counter propaganda propaganda opportunity to folk who can milk a milking.
*Off soon, if one is treated much more to the new political peroxide sink stumbling over what she ‘thinks’ in every sentence when ‘reporting’ on folk who have got used to pots of money getting less because… there is no more in the pot.
Have to agree that they dont look beaten at all. Also,
We were lined up against the wall facing it,” he said. “A man with a small sub machine gun was putting it to the nape of everyone’s neck in turn. …. he pulled the trigger twice. The shots went past my ear ….
So he shot into the wall at very close range?
Most of what I saw on the news with these two appeard to be speculation about what might happen to them not what actually happened.
Have to agree that they dont look beaten at all. Also,
We were lined up against the wall facing it,” he said. “A man with a small sub machine gun was putting it to the nape of everyone’s neck in turn. …. he pulled the trigger twice. The shots went past my ear ….
So he shot into the wall at very close range?
Most of what I saw on the news with these two appeard to be speculation about what might happen to them not what actually happened.
jeremy bowen?
no?
rats
if it had been those nasty joooozz the BBC would be “working” with foam flecked autocues
But it wouldn’t be the Jews and never has been the Jews. This is why the BBC feels so free to bravely disseminate anti Israel propaganda. There is nothing to be brave about.
Not a BBC story but relevant. During Operation Cast Lead a Scandinavian film crew decided that the Israelis were stopping them entering Gaza so they tried entering through Egypt where they were promptly detained. They called an Israeli Arab journalist for advice.
He reminded them that this was a great story and they should broadcast it directly. They replied that if the Egyptians saw them filming they would stop them or worse. So the journalist suggested they go to the toilet and broadcast through their cell phone cameras which had not been confiscated. That they decided was still to dangerous.
When they were released after a day and returned to ‘dangerous’ Israel the journalist suggested that they broadcast the story. They demurred. In the future they might have to enter Egypt and would not get permission from the Egyptians once the story was released!
Sorry, deegee, but obviously Israel is always going to be far worse than this because the IDF killed Bowen’s driver. These guys weren’t killed, and are not personal friends of the BBC Middle East editor, so is not as bad.
I think they are lucky in thats all that happened to them. You should question the BBC keeping them in the area in the area in the first place. Have they never heard of Health & Safety in the work place
I have been less than impressed that this blog was first closed and then allowed to languish, especially with so much unfurling since:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2011/02/reporting_from_libya.html
Mind you, sitting on a sofa with Col. or in the backseat with mini-Col. on an ‘all is well’ outing might be hard to spin as ‘difficult’.
Maybe now they’ll reinstate it as the narrative has kicked in to suit again?
Wow, the BBC has discovered that people they criticise, pay attention. Fancy that. Wait for a reduction of news from Libya suggesting Gaddafi might be looney and misleading his supporters. Can’t put our people into danger, can we?
Having watched BBC Breakfast for the last few hours while trying to tear myself from my pit, I was aghast that news reports going about what they do where attacked and treated in this way. I listened slack jawed as they recanted the tale of beating, hoods & gun shots.
I was lucky enough to catch last nights version of the same article where they highlighted that one of the crew was beaten heavily, they then cut to him with not a mark on him.
You put yourself in harms way in a country where 1,000’s are being killed to cling onto power, I bet it wouldn’t have happened to Jon, that body armour would have saved him…
Regarding marks, I guess it is possible that they were beaten on the body, not the face. But I found this interesting:
One of the three, Chris Cobb-Smith, said: “We were lined up against the wall. I was the last in line – facing the wall.
“I looked and I saw a plain-clothes guy with a small sub-machine gun. He put it to everyone’s neck. I saw him and he screamed at me.
“Then he walked up to me, put the gun to my neck and pulled the trigger twice. The bullets whisked past my ear. The soldiers just laughed.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12695077
Now I’m not clued up on weapons but it seems odd that someone would shoot at a wall from close range. What about the danger of ricochets?
Pounce?!
Paintball gun?
Yep it would be stupid in the least! the most used weapons in the area are the AK-47 and 74! the carbine version which would be the most likely is the AKS-74U [I cannot see them having Uzi’s me self] which fires at 2,411.4 ft/s and most of that energy wont be imparted in to the wall so will send the bullet somewhere else fast and as soviet rounds have a nasty trick of a air gap inside the jacket they deform and breakup sending shrapnel out at high velocity, even a pistol say 9mm would be stupid as the round is more likely to come straight back at you !
The best example is to check out the guy with a .50cal on you tube !
Could be the gunman just pretended to fire while someone nearby let off two shots.
Yep good old pysc war hmm bet they learned that over here as well lol!
“A second member of the team – Feras Killani, a correspondent of Palestinian descent – appears to have been singled out for repeated beatings ”
That’s interesting. I don’t remember them ever giving the background to their correspondents or stringers from Gaza. That might bring their ‘balanced’ reporting into question.
I wonder why the BBC mentioned it in this scenario.
First of all the question of “Feras Killani, a Palestinian refugee with a Syrian passport”.
My grandparents fled Latvia in the early 1900s before more than 30 of the family were killed by the Nazis. Does that make me a “Latvian refugee with a British passport”?
The guy’s Syrian just as I’m British!
Regarding the alleged beatings he suffered see here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12695138
All that allegedly happened on Monday, it’s Thursday now and not a mark or bruise to be seen on his face.
Given the terror and confusion of the tribal warfare that is going on in Libya, the BBC (and Western) narrative has clearly identified the good guys and the bad guys.
Fine.
I hold no brief for Gaddafi and I know nothing about the Eastern Tribes.
What I do know is that be publicising the treatment of their journalists, picked up by lower level military in a shooting war of the nastiest kind, the three were released to their hotel on instructions from a higher authority.
To make a fuss about their treatment is very dangerous for the droves of other BBC people as the favour might not be repeated the next time a Chadian paramilitary haps by a BBC Threesome.
The higher authority might just have the ‘phone off the hook.
Never be the news, just report it.
Incidents as described, causing a reaction even in the UN and Parliament, is not the best insurance policy.
Tell the tale when the shouting has died down.
A direction of British foreign policy not to be entertained by Islam Not BBC (INBBC):
“If we truly are Israel’s friend, then now is the time to show it ”
(by Benedict Brogan)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100079268/if-we-truly-are-israel%e2%80%99s-friend-then-now-is-the-time-to-show-it/#
A strategic and moral error of the first magnitude
(by Melanie Phillips)
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-come.html