Some news about Hamas that you won't see on the BBC

This from The Telegraph includes (my emphasis)"With both legs badly bruised from a vicious beating, Shaher Abu Oda can only move around with a painful shuffle. In the town of Beit Hanoun, on Palestine's Gaza strip, however, he is just one of many young men bearing limps, plaster casts, and stitches - the black and blue aftermath of an unprecedented crackdown on dissent by the strip's new rulers, the Islamist group Hamas.
Its officials snatched Mr Abu Oda off the streets two weeks ago as he was trying to find his younger brother Miqbil, himself badly beaten after club-wielding Hamas policemen broke up a wedding party. The revellers' crime had been to sing a few songs associated with the Fatah party, the rival Palestinian faction which Hamas ousted from the Gaza Strip two months ago. "They threw me in a room," said Mr Abu Oda. "From 11.30 to 3.30 in the morning, they came in every 15 minutes and beat me with sticks, fists, kicks, and a black leather crop."
As many as 50 people are thought to have been arrested in Gaza's Beit Hanoun district around the night of the wedding, and similar sweeps have taken place elsewhere in Gaza since then. The detentions and beatings appear to mark the end of a relative honeymoon period for Hamas, which seized control of Gaza after five days of battle in June."

Also "Now though, human rights groups and ordinary Gazans say Hamas is committing exactly the same crimes as its Fatah predecessors, whose corruption and brutality were one of the main reasons why support for Hamas grew. "We are receiving reports of political detentions every day," said Mahmoud Abu Rahma, of the Gaza City-based Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights. "Hamas is conducting wide sweeps and interrogations to collect information. The interrogations include harsh treatment, and in many cases, torture and beatings."

At a protest in Gaza City on Friday, Hamas gunmen broke up a demonstration by Fatah loyalists by firing on the crowd and smashing journalists' cameras. Similar treatment is often meted out in the opposite direction in the Fatah-controlled West Bank, where dozens, if not hundreds, of Hamas activists have been jailed - but since Hamas has long portrayed itself to the Palestinians as an upright alternative to decades of corrupt Fatah rule, such behaviour rankles all the more.

"Fatah arrested and tortured people too," said a senior official from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an independent political faction. "But during Fatah's rule we could give our opinions, and say anything we wanted about the Fatah leadership. Today people are afraid of saying anything about Hamas."

"At least two detainees have died in Hamas custody since July 11. In the most recent case, Waleed Abu Dalfa, 45, was arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel. Thirty masked militants from Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, arrested him and his two brothers in the night. Seven days later his dead body was dumped at a Gaza City hospital. The doctor on duty reported "bruises on the hands and the legs, haematomas in the legs and signs of stranglehold on the neck."

"On August 13, Hamas broke up a peaceful protest rally that included a number of different Palestinian political groups, beating protesters with sticks and confiscating cameras from journalists. Newspapers have been banned, critical television talk shows have been pulled from the air, and a new Hamas decree prohibits demonstrations and even outdoor weddings without approval."

Now the BBC have reported on the Hamas crackdown at the demonstration mentioned above, however the report seems a little sketchy on details. The report is here and here are some excerpts "Hamas security forces have fired over the heads of rival Fatah supporters, to disperse an opposition rally in Gaza. Witnesses say the gunmen opened fire when demonstrators started hurling rocks at a former Fatah compound, now occupied by Hamas forces. Reuters news agency reports it was the biggest Fatah rally since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June. Four cameramen were arrested during the scuffles but were later released. Journalists later staged a separate protest against the crackdown outside a building which houses many media outlets. Since taking power in June, Hamas has tried to stop journalists filming pro-Fatah gatherings." So according to the BBC (vote Labour, we are all Hamas now) the demonstrators started the problem by throwing some rocks and so were properly dispersed - would the same hold true in England if some anti-capitalism demonstrators threw rocks at the police and were "dispersed", I think the BBC would react with less understanding of the police position! "Four cameramen were arrested during the scuffles but were later released" No mention of what happened to the cameras there...

The BBC love them or hate them, you can't ignore them - unfortunately.