The Telegraph reports misleadingly in a headline that:
'The BBC has pulled a controversial documentary on the murder of Lebanon's prime minister after it was criticised by a newspaper linked to Hizbollah. '
That's not quite true, as the detail of The Telegraph's report shows (
my emphasis):
'The three-part series, Murder in Beirut, was due to begin showing on BBC World on Saturday, but was postponed indefinitely as its compliance with "editorial guidelines" was investigated, the corporation said.
It recounted events surrounding the murder in 2005 of Rafiq Hariri, Lebanon's Sunni Muslim prime minister who was backed by the West. Syria was blamed initially but there are reports that a United Nations tribunal of inquiry is about to indict members of Hizbollah, the Shia militant organisation backed by Iran.
Christopher Mitchell, whose independent film production company ORTV made the documentary, said the trigger for the decision by the BBC seemed to have been a front-page article in Al Akhbar, a pro-Hizbollah newspaper, attacking the film for blaming the organisation. The organisation had already said that any such finding would "ignite the wick of an explosion". '
So that's how to put the BBC off showing something, threaten them... I suppose it helps when the organisation doing the threatening is one loved by the BBC - 'We are all Hezbollah now'.
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