Promoters of Islam 101.
Islamic State should be used because that’s how they define themselves, and one would be hard pressed to prove that they’re not living up to their name. If mohamed was alive today, he’s be joining with them.
Next you’ll be ‘impartial’ about the Nazis! Cabinet fury as BBC refuses to stop using ‘Islamic State’ to be FAIR to the terror group
- Petition signed by 120 MPs asked BBC to stop using name in reports
- Said term was offensive to Muslims and gave group legitimacy
- But the corporation’s director general Tony Hall has rejected proposals
- He said using alternative would ‘give the impression of support’ for those fighting the terrorist group and could ‘bias BBC coverage’
BBC director general Tony Hall has refused to stop using the term Islamic State to refer to ISIS, saying the alternative of Daesh was ‘pejorative’
The head of the BBC sparked fury today after rejecting a demand by MPs to stop using the name Islamic State to refer to the terror group – because it would ‘give the impression of support’ for its opponents.
Tony Hall, the corporation’s director general, rejected the call from a cross-party group of 120 MPs to use the name ‘Daesh’ instead, saying it would ‘bias their coverage’.
The decision was widely criticised in Parliament today. Commons leader Chris Grayling said it was like being ‘impartial’ to Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Muslim Tory MP Rehman Chisti, who started the petition to stop using ‘Islamic State’, said the BBC’s response was ‘not worth the paper it’s written on’.
Daesh is a commonly used Arabic abbreviation for ISIS which the terrorists consider to be offensive because it sounds similar to the word ‘Dahes’ meaning ‘one who sows discord’.
The extremists are variously known as Islamic State, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Daesh, based on the Arabic acronym for the group.
The government official uses ISIL as an alternative.
Mr Chishti, the Tory MP for Gillingham and Rainham, said Muslims are offended by the use of the word ‘Islamic’, as they do not consider the bloodthirsty group representative of their faith.
Mr Chishti added that the name also served to legitimise the fanatics by including the word ‘state’.
The petition was widely backed in the House of Commons, with signatories including London Mayor Boris Johnson, and former SNP leader Alex Salmond.
But in a response to the MP, Lord Hall said that the word Daesh risked giving the ‘impression of support’ for the group’s opponents and ‘would not preserve the BBC’s impartiality’.
In the letter, seen by The Times, he said the BBC would use terms such as ‘the Islamic State group’ to ‘distinguish it from an actual, recognised state’.
He added: ‘We will also continue to use other qualifiers when appropriate, eg extremists, militants, fighters etc.
‘To avoid overuse we will also usually revert to IS after one mention of the Islamic State group.’
