Arab League terror designation absent from BBC’s Hizballah profile

Following on from its recent reporting on the subject of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s designation of Hizballah as a terrorist organisation, the BBC News website produced an article on March 11th titled “Arab League brands Hezbollah a terrorist organization“.Arab League Hizb

Like its predecessor, this article too gives readers a partial overview of the designation of Hizballah worldwide.

“The Arab League and GCC decision to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation bring them into line with the United States and the European Union – although the latter has only blacklisted the group’s military wing.”

As was noted here before the Arab League reached its decision:

“That statement of course provides audiences with only a partial view of Hizballah’s terror designations: in addition to the EU, the so-called ‘military wing’ of Hizballah is also designated by Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The entire organization is now designated by the six GCC member states, the US, Canada, France, the Netherlands and of course Israel.”

Notably, the BBC’s backgrounder on Hizballah has not yet been updated to include the Arab League designation and the relevant section still reads:

“Hezbollah has been accused of carrying out a string of bombings and plots against Jewish and Israeli targets and is designated a terrorist organisation by Western states, Israel and Gulf Arab countries.”

A previous profile of Hizballah – dating from 2010 but still available online – only mentions the US designation and a 2006 profile also still accessible online cites designation by the US, Israel and the UK.

Clearly the failure to update the most recent profile renders it inaccurate and the fact that even older ones remain available online without any indication that they have been replaced by newer material further exacerbates the likelihood of BBC audiences being misled.

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BBC News website profile of Hizballah gets airbrushed

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