Category Archives: euphemisms

Gunnar comments,

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“Seriously, can you please point to some sources were the people who detonated themselves in Pizza restaurants, or at wedding parties or on the London underground were called “militants” by the liberal media (your term) and not terrorist.”

OK, I will.

Pizza restaurants first. Here are are some BBC stories about the attack on the Sbarro pizza restaurant.

Link 1. “Hamas, the hard-line Palestinian militant group, said one of its members had been the bomber.

Link 2. It starts, “With Palestinian militants continuing to carry out suicide attacks in Israel…”

Later, happy Palestinians staged the Sbarro show – no mention of terrorists there in the BBC’s own voice either. Why don’t you google through bbc.co.uk for Sbarro and look for the word “terrorist” in the BBC’s own voice, rather than in quotes?

Incidentally, the father of a 15 year old girl murdered at Sbarro, commented on this blog here.

Now for a wedding party. Here are some BBC stories about the 2005 suicide bombing of a wedding in Amman, Jordan.

Link 1 – “At least several hundred people have marched through Amman to denounce the bombers and show loyalty to King Abdullah II. “Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” they chanted, referring to the Jordanian-born militant believed to lead al-Qaeda in Iraq.”

Link 2 It refers to “bombers”, but not terrorists. Again, why don’t you have a look through the BBC website for stories regarding this crime and see if you can find the bombers described as terrorists in the BBC’s own voice?

Finally, here’s something about the London Underground. In the immediate aftermath of the “7/7” London bombings of 2005 certain BBC staff did use the word terrorist several times. “Terrorist atrocity”, even. As in the case of Beslan, it looked for a moment like a change of heart. But this indelicacy contradicted policy. So the BBC went back through the stories and changed “terrorist” to “bomber”.

For proof, Harry’s Place got screenshots. This story was discussed in the Telegraph, which named the BBC official responsible as Helen Boaden. She was worried the word terrorist might offend the World Service customers.

(Links to old Biased BBC posts take you to the relevant month. You may have to scroll down to see the relevant post.)

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SICK OF MILITANTS.

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So little time, so many “militants.” I was reading this story on the BBC about Basra “militants” and then this story about Hamas “militants.” Each time Islamic inspired terrorists seek to bring death and destruction upon the innocent, the BBC trots out this “militant” euphemism. What’s the problem with using the correct word – TERRORIST? Oh I know the liberal media, including the BBC, sprint away from making any moral judgement about those scum that detonate themselves in Pizza restaurants, or at wedding parties, or even on London underground trains but all this does, in my view, is demonstrate their own innate moral relativism and cowardly failure to call things as they are.

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A RADICAL VOCABULARY.

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What is the problem that the BBC has with using the term “terrorist”? Take this report headed “1970’s radical freed from jail”. It concerns a woman who spent 24 years on the run before pleading guilty to a 1975 attempted police car bombing, and who has been released after a seven-year jail term. Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, was a member of the terrorist group the so-called Symbionese Liberation Army. The group became famous for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in 1974. Olson also pleaded guilty to the second degree murder of a woman during a 1975 bank raid. This woman is NOT radical, she is a terrorist. Would the BBC please explain WHY the euphemism “radical” is employed rather than than the correct term “terrorist”? Moral relativism got their tongues?

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YOUTH CULTURE.

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Well what do you know? The BBC reports that a priest has been attacked in the grounds of his church, in what police described as a “faith-hate“ crime. Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was injured by two..ahem… Asian youths at the church, in Tower Hamlets, east London. Canon Ainsworth said a third youth watched as he suffered cuts, bruises and black eyes in the assault at the church of St George-in-the-East. The “youths” also jeered at the priest for being a churchman in the attack on Wednesday night, the Met Police said.

“Two Asian youths”? Oh, I see, that must be the same kind of “youths” who ran riot in the Banlieues of Paris. I think this is a patronising media euphemism for…. Muslims. When we see the media censoring itself we know something is very rotten in the State, broadcaster.

When I posted this story over on my own site. A Tangled Web, the point was made that the BBC are merely reporting what the Police said. That’s a fair point but surely it is up to the BBC to confront the reality that a Christian minister was attacked by two Muslim ouths and report it as such, no matter what precious sensibilities it offends?

UPDATE: Just a little more detail on this vicious attack, none of which is sourced from the BBC.

The Reverend Alan Green, Area Dean for Tower Hamlets, said it was the latest in a series of “faith hate” crimes in the borough. He said: “It was a nasty cowardly attack. There were several groups in the churchyard and two from one group attacked him and the other group came and helped him back to the house. “He was kicked and punched in the head as he lay on the ground, I believe that what was shouted was ‘you f***ing priest before they attacked him.

And then…Mr Allan Ramanoop, a member of the Parochial Church Council, said often parishioners were too scared to challenge the gangs. The Asian church member, who lives nearby, said: “I’ve been physically threatened and verbally abused on the steps of the church.
“On one occasion, youths shouted: ‘This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here’.

“Should be a Mosque” …right, I think we have now now ruled out the Zoroastrians… so which group might this leave?

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ONE LESS TERRORIST, ONE MORE EUPHEMISM.

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It’s always heartening when an Islamist terrorist warlord gets sent to paradise and the waiting 72 virgins a little ahead of schedule and so it is that the death of Imad Mughniyeh, who has died in a bombing in Damascus, is welcome news. Mughniyeh was a senior terrorist within Hezbollah, and his death has seen him eulogised him as a “jihadist” and as a “martyr” by those who hate Jews and Americans. This monster was involved in a series of bombings that took the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of people. And yet, the BBC headline describes him as a “top Hizbollah leader.” The BBC studiously avoids describing him as a terrorist because as we know that would be judgemental and that would never do. The BBC lets itself down by shying away from calling terrorists by their proper name. In failing in its’ duty to accurately describe Mughniyeh the BBC conveys spurious credibility on this evil man. It’s moral relativism and it is rampant in the BBC.

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