This is a cross post from BBC Watch.
On May 8th the BBC News website’s Middle East page published an article – titled “Palestinian hunger strike leader Barghouti ‘filmed eating’” – which relates to a story that broke the previous day.
“Israel’s prison service has released a video purportedly showing the leader of a three-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian inmates eating in his cell.
The service said Marwan Barghouti had been filmed consuming cookies in secret on 27 April and a snack bar on 5 May.”
The article gives generous amplification to statements from interested parties and even before they clicked on the link, BBC audiences were informed that ‘Marwan Barghouti’s wife says the surveillance footage released by Israel’s prison service is “fake”‘.
“Barghouti’s wife said the footage was “fake” and intended to break the morale of the hunger strike’s participants. […]
The head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, Qadoura Fares, called the video a fabrication, stressing Barghouti was being held in solitary confinement at Kishon prison and had no access to food.
“This is psychological warfare that we expected Israel to wage against the strike,” he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, said Israel was “resorting to despicable acts” and warned that they would “increase the prisoners’ insistence on continuing”.”
Read the rest of this post here.
