[Amena Saleem on Wed, 05/01/2013]

The BBC has admitted that a report it broadcast in January implying that only part of the West Bank is under occupation was inaccurate.

The claim that there is a difference between “West Bank towns and villages and areas occupied by Israel” was made on the BBC’s heavyweight current affairs program, Newsnight.

Introducing an item about the Negev (Naqab) desert, presenter Gavin Esler, said: “Israeli soldiers shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian youth today near the barrier which separates West Bank towns and villages from areas occupied by Israel.”

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) wrote to the BBC to point out that the whole of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is under Israeli occupation and that a false distinction cannot be made between “West Bank towns and villages” and “areas occupied by Israel.”

The BBC initially wrote back defending Esler’s phrasing. In an email to the PSC, Stuart Webb of BBC Complaints wrote: “With this reference Gavin sought to broadly differentiate between parts of the West Bank administered directly by the Palestinian Authority and sections directly occupied by Israeli forces.”

At no point in his introduction to the Negev report had Esler mentioned the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, as the PSC pointed out in its reply, “West Bank towns and villages,” which Esler was implying are not under Israeli occupation, and “areas occupied by Israel” are one and the same — it is all Palestinian land which has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Put simply, the BBC was wrong to attempt to make any kind of differentiation.

“Belligerent occupation”

The facts make this abundantly clear. That the whole of the West Bank is under occupation is recognized by the UN, the UK and other governments, and by international organizations. The Israeli high court has ruled that Israel holds the West Bank under “belligerent occupation.” In July 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel illegally occupies the whole of the West Bank, with no distinction made between Area A and Area C — the zones under Palestinian Authority and Israeli administration respectively — in violation of international law. And, of course, UN Resolution 242 calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including the whole of the West Bank.

It is curious then, with all of this information readily available, that the BBC made such a serious mistake in a scripted item, a mistake which downplayed the true scale of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Following further correspondence with the PSC, the BBC today acknowledged its mistake and apologized.

The Newsnight team wrote in an email: “We agree that it was inaccurate to describe the barrier in this way with the implication that not all of the West Bank is occupied. The reference to the shooting in Budrus was intended to put a newsworthy top line in the introduction to a feature about the Negev desert and we apologize for the error.”

Newsnight added: “We regret any mistake we made,” but rejected claims of bias towards an Israeli narrative.

Catching them out

It was important to the PSC to pursue this case and secure an admission of error, because the narrative that it is only Area C that is under occupation is one that the BBC seems to be taking up across its reporting, and this needed to be challenged.

Most recently, on 17 April, in a documentary entitled Israel: Facing the Future, BBC presenter John Ware, filmed driving through Ramallah, said: “Although Israel occupies most of the West Bank, Palestinians are governed day-to-day by the Palestinian Authority, based here.”

Like Esler, Ware is not a rookie reporter. He knows, and his team of researchers would know, as Newsnight’s researchers should know, that Israel does not occupy most of the West Bank, it occupies all of it.

The reasons for the BBC trying to obscure this fact and mislead its audiences can only be guessed at. However, it is to be hoped that, now it has been challenged and caught out, its misreporting on this particular subject will cease across the whole of its considerable output.

[Full Segment] Jon Stewart defends Bassem Youssef (Egypt’s Jon Stewart); Destroys Pres. Morsi - Daily show - 4/1/13 (by VidNightNews)

(Source: doufusion)

הפגנה לזכר הרוגי עמוד ענן בעזה (by SocialTV)

Demonstration in Yaffa commemorating those killed by Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012.

unaphotographer:

Free Syrian Army rebel strikes a pose in Aleppo.

unaphotographer:

Today the photography magazine ‘Digiphoto Pro’ released its new edition with me on the frontcover and an awesome 9 paged interview with photo’s. The editor, Jesse Kraal, also lended me his old Canon 5D, in cases of emergency :) Thank you Jesse Kraal!

Monday I will start my journey, i’m nervous and tense because of the alternative route I will be taking. But I’ll manage, I always do.
More posts this weekend! 

Proportionate self-defense, CLEARLY.

Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/fullfocus/files/2012/11/RTR3AIH7.jpg

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2012/11/2012112091248733420.html

Children in the Shate’e camp in the southern part of Gaza wave victory signs. 

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2012/11/2012112091248733420.html

After shelling, residents often visit sites of destruction to inspect the damage caused by the missiles and talk to their neighbours. 

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2012/11/2012112091248733420.html

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi assumed sweeping powers on Thursday, prompting prominent opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei to accuse him of usurping authority and becoming a “new pharoah”.

“The president can issue any decision or measure to protect the revolution,” according to a decree read out on television by presidential spokesman Yasser Ali.

“The constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal.”

Morsi also sacked prosecutor general Abdel Meguid Mahmud, whom he failed to oust last month, appointing Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah to replace him.

That set him on another collision course with the country’s judiciary after he last month promised to bring back to court ex-regime officials acquitted of organising an attack on protesters during last year’s uprising against ousted leader Hosni Mubarak.

The president in his pronouncements on Thursday ordered “new investigations and retrials” in the cases dealing with the deaths of protesters, a decision that could net senior military officials.

He also said no judicial body can dissolve the the upper house of parliament or the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly that is writing a new constitution and which has been criticised by the secular-minded opposition for failing to represent all segments of society.

He has also given the body — which was due to issue a draft consitution in December — two extra months to come up with a charter, that will then be put to a referendum.

The declaration is aimed at “cleansing state institutions” and “destroying the infrastructure of the old regime.”

Nobel laureate and former UN atomic energy agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei lashed out at the declaration, which effectively puts the president above judicial oversight.

“Morsi today usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh. A major blow to the revolution that could have dire consequences,” ElBaradei wrote on his Twitter account.

Even before the announcement was read out, Islamists had gathered outside the High Court in central Cairo demanding the “cleansing of the judiciary.”

Morsi, who belongs to the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, is the first elected president after the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak last year.

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“And now, Ikhwan are interpreting dictatorship as a means to end corruption, what a sick mind.” - Wael Eskandar 

dynamicafrica:

Portraits from a series of photographs taken in Cairo by French photographer Denis Dailleux.

(via realfakescientist)

Masjid e vakil, in Shiraz, Iran.

(Source: lonelyplanet.com)

I want to go there so badly. 

(Source: n-architektur, via canemr)

Egyptian football association delays indefinitely start of domestic season in wake of February riots that left 74 dead.

Egypt’s football association has decided to delay the rest of the domestic season indefinitely, saying that they have not been given security guarantees by the government in the wake of the Port Said tragedy.

Seventy-four people, most of them supporters of Cairo club al-Ahly, the most successful club team in Africa, werekilled when Port Said-based al-Masry fans went on a rampage at the end of a match in February.

Egypt football trial begins amid bedlam [Al Jazeera] 

“We asked the ministry of interior for the authorisation but we didn’t receive any response,” the Egyptian football association said in a statement on their official website on Monday.

The Egyptian league was due to resume on October 17, but some of Ahly’s supporters, known as ultras, have been calling for a suspension until verdicts are heard in the trial of 73 defendants accused of carrying out the killings.

All football activities were disrupted in the country following the stadium stampede in the northern city of Port Said on Februrary 1, the deadliest sporting tragedy in Egyptian history.

An official from within the football association told Egypt’s Ahram Online that the reason for the delay was because “the newly elected board decided to take the side of martyrs and injured families and to support the ultras [Ahly club fans] in their demand to freeze the league competition until the Port Said case ends”.

Nine senior police officers and three Masry officials are among 73 people accused of involvement in the deadly riot in Port Said. Some of the defendants face murder charges, while the senior officers have been charged with assisting the attackers.

Deadly riot 

The clashes in the Suez Canal city between fans of home side al-Masry and Cairo’s al-Ahly erupted at the final whistle.

Masry fans invaded the pitch after their team beat the visitors 3-1, throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at Ahly supporters, causing chaos and panic as players and fans fled in all directions.

It was one of the deadliest incidents in football history, and came amid charges from witnesses that security forces did little to prevent the rioting.

The Port Said stadium deaths also sparked days of violent protests in Cairo, in which another 16 people were killed.

The prosecutor said the accused, many of whom are Masry supporters, started the violence that killed the Ahly fans “in revenge for prior differences between them, and in a show of force”.

Many Egyptians believe the football riot was orchestrated either by the police or by supporters of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, a reflection of the distrust felt towards the country’s ruling military.