BBC: Hamas

(asked on 13th October 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had recent discussions with the Chair of the BBC on the appropriate description of Hamas in its news coverage.


Answered by
John Whittingdale Portrait
John Whittingdale
This question was answered on 23rd October 2023

The events in Israel since 7 October are terrorist acts committed by a terrorist organisation, proscribed in the United Kingdom since 2021 and designated as such by many other governments and international organisations.

The BBC is editorially and operationally independent and decisions around its editorial policies and guidelines are therefore a matter for the BBC not the Government.

However, calling these acts what they are, and accurately labelling the perpetrators, helps audiences to understand what has happened, is happening and its context.

That is why the Secretary of State has communicated with the BBC, and with the public, her disappointment that the BBC has refused to describe Hamas as terrorists, or the atrocities it has carried out as terrorism. The Secretary of State made that point when she met the Director General of the BBC on 9 October.

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