Category Archives: terrorism

I’m looking for something.

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Can you guess what?

Israel buries Mumbai attack dead – “Six Jews died at the centre, which was one of several places targeted in the attacks that left 188 people dead.”

“She [Sandra Samuel, Moshe Holtzberg’s nanny] hid in a cupboard when the centre was attacked, but emerged to rescue the child after his parents were killed.”

“The Chabad centre was stormed on Wednesday evening by armed militants who seized hostages and fought a gun battle with Indian commandos.

Indian forces eventually regained control of the centre, killing several gunmen, but six of the hostages were found dead.”

Officials quit over India attacks (An earlier headline, preserved in the header, was “Troops battle to end Mumbai seige.) “Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, had been killed alongside his wife, Rivka.”

Israel awaits Mumbai attack dead “The organisation confirmed that Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, had been killed alongside his wife, Rivka. Their two-year-old son survived.”

Mumbai victims from all walks of life “Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, and his wife Rivkah, 28, were among six Jews killed in the Mumbai attacks. They were found dead at the Jewish cultural centre, known as Nariman House, which was one of the gunmen’s key targets.”

Officials quit over India attacks (Has the header “Police declare Mumbai seige over”, and seems to be a later version of the second story listed.) “The organisation confirmed that Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, had been killed alongside his wife, Rivka.”

Tense times for Mumbai’s Jews “Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, were among the six people who died in the attack at Nariman House. “

As it happened: Mumbai attacks 27 Nov – contains references to the Holtzbergs being held hostage.

As it happened: Mumbai attacks – 28 Nov “A Brooklyn-based rabbi and his wife were killed in the siege on the Nariman House Jewish centre, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement confirms. Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg were “the beloved directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai”, it says.”

Jewish centre seized in Mumbai – contains a reference to the status of Rabbi Holtzberg being unknown at that time.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

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The BBC is biased in India too…

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“What is interesting is that the BBC is not reluctant to report an accusation — almost as if it were an established fact — but cannot bring itself to report an established fact that the torching of the train was a premeditated act of Islamic terrorism“

Read about it here. I think someone pointed this one out in the comments on this site, too.

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TRUE CONFESSIONS

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. I was listening to the news headlines on BBC Radio 5 live this morning and caught the surreal headline that “Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness is visiting Iraq on a peace mission.” Three thoughts;

Why does the BBC not enquire when Mr McGuinness LEFT the IRA?

Why does the BBC not enquire what atrocities the IRA committed when McGuinness was directly involved in commanding terrorism?”

Why does the BBC choose at times to highlight the terrorist pedigree f McGuinness and then at other times to demurely cover this up?>

It seems to me that the BBC gets a kick out of fawning of terrorists, be they Islamic or Irish.

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“POLITICAL LEADERS” AND TERRORISM

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. I was intrigued by this BBC report which is entitled “ETA “Political Leader” arrested.” This is a very odd heading because the guy arrested in a joint Spanish-French operation Javier Lopez Pena is not in any way “a political leader” but rather a cold-blooded terrorist killer. Spanish police said Lopez Pena was one of the major movers behind the abandonment of Eta’s ceasefire last year. He is accused of being involved in the December 2006 car bombing at Madrid’s airport that killed two people, an attack that signalled the ending of the ceasefire. Eta is blamed for the deaths of more than 820 people in its 40-year campaign for an independent Basque nation. So, Lopez Pena is a TERRORIST, and there is not need to put any quotation marks around that. I wish the BBC did not have this constant problem in understanding the nature of a terrorist.

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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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SHAME ON YOU.

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The BBC’s relentless hostility to the United States is evidenced once again in the faux headline that “US Shamed by Mandela terror link.” This concerns the news that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked for “embarrassing” travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela and South African leaders to be lifted. A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to remove from databases any reference to South Africa’s governing party and its leaders as terrorists. Now I realise that Mandela is the patron saint of leftworld and the ANC are immune to criticism in BBC land but the fact is that Mandela DID plan terrorist acts and there are plenty within the communist ANC who relished carrying out other terrorist atrocities. The United States has NO “shame” as the BBC puts it in trying to exclude terrorists, although of course here in the UK the opposite situation prevails where we cannot exclude terrorists as the Court of Appeal made clear the other day.

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THOSE MURDEROUS MEN AND THEIR FLYING MACHINES.

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Along with other eagle-eyed Biased BBC readers, I noted the BBC lead story at the moment which is entitled “Men planned explosions”. Mmm.. all sounds a bit vague, doesn’t it? I wonder why? Here’s a clue – the prosecutor said the men planned to inflict heavy casualties, “all in the name of Islam”.

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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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Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic Part 328

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(follow-up to this post and this post)

At Harry’s Place (and in the BBBC comments – apologies – Ritter was there first !) they’ve been taking a look at the BBC editorial guidelines.

The Terrorism Act 2000

We have a legal obligation under the Terrorism Act 2000 to disclose to the police, as soon as reasonably practicable, any information which we know or believe might be of material assistance in:

preventing the commission of an act of terrorism anywhere in the world.

securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of a person in the UK, for an offence involving the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.

It is a criminal offence not to disclose such information, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Any situation where BBC staff may be in potential breach of the Terrorism Act must be referred to Controller Editorial Policy and Programme Legal Advice.

I’m not sure how that squares with this:

Nasreen Suleaman, a researcher on the programme, told the court that Mr Hamid, 50, contacted her after the July 2005 attack and told her of his association with the bombers. But she said that she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information. Ms Suleaman said that she informed senior BBC managers but was not told to contact the police.

This prima facie looks very bad for someone – but if Ms Suleaman reported to the “Controller Editorial Policy and Programme Legal Advice” I’d say she was in the clear as far as following the Beeb guidelines was concerned. Who did she report to ? And did the BBC tell the police ?

(From the HP comments – producer Phil Rees, who now works for Al-Jazeera, gave a C4 news interview claiming that the conviction of “Osama bin London” meant that it was now illegal to criticise British foreign policy. And the video of “Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic” appears to have vanished from the BBC site)

More on Phil Rees, who doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as a terrorist. You can see why the BBC commission so much stuff from him.

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Playgrounds for killers:

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The BBC carries a report here on thousands of Palestinians having formed a “human chain” in Gaza in protest at Israel’s blockade of the territory. Gaza schools were closed for the day, and thousands of pupils were taken in buses to participate. Many could be seen with banners stating: “The siege of Gaza will only strengthen us” and “The world has condemned Gaza to death”. I was wondering if these children attend the same schools for suicide bombers in Gaza on which the BBC reported here back in 2001? I also wonder if the many “militants” and “fighters” that infest Gaza in 2008 may be frustrated graduates from these same schools for self-exploders from the class of 2001 – schools for which the people of Gaza have such a pride? BBC Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi appears to believe that this demonstration was a spontaneous display by “ordinary Palestinians” rather than a cynical (and failed) stunt by Hamas! How can we take such bizarre commentary from Abdelhadi seriously?

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