On November 24th the Haifa Magistrates Court found Raed Salah guilty of incitement to terrorism.
“A prominent Arab Israeli Islamic cleric was convicted Sunday of incitement to terrorism over a 2017 speech in which he praised a deadly attack at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Haifa Magistrate’s Court also convicted Sheikh Raed Salah for supporting an outlawed organization. Salah was leader of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, which Israel banned in 2015 over alleged links to terror groups and for inciting deadly violence.
Salah was arrested and charged two years ago for praising three Arab Israelis who shot dead two police officers in a July 2017 attack at the Temple Mount compound.”
That conviction has not received any BBC coverage to date.
A BBC profile of Salah – titled “Sheikh Raed Salah: Profile of pro-Palestinian activist” – dating from 2011 when he was banned from entering the UK to attend “a House of Commons meeting […] along with Labour MPs including Jeremy Corbyn, Richard Burden and Yasmin Qureshi” is still available online.
Readers of that profile are told that: [emphasis added]
“Sheikh Salah has been described by some as the “Gandhi of Palestine”.”
“Sheikh Salah is a poet and a father of eight children.”
“Sheikh Salah is a citizen of Israel – he was born in 1958 in the town of Umm al-Fahm, which a decade earlier had become part of the state of Israel when Palestine was divided.”
“…he became a founding member of the Islamic Movement in Israel, which is a legal organisation. He is now leader of its northern branch.”
The Northern Islamic Movement ceased to be a “legal organisation” four years ago.
If the BBC is going to leave backgrounders such as this fawning profile of Salah (which includes a link to a pro-Hamas website) online as “historic public record”, then it should obviously be obliged to update them as subsequent events occur in order to ensure that the information available to audiences accurate and relevant.
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BBC News ignores Northern Islamic Movement ban – in English
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