BBC journalist ‘liked’ tweet calling reports of Hamas rapes ‘nonsense’

It tells reporters: “Do not express an opinion on a policy that is the subject of a current political debate or a matter of public policy, a political or industrial controversy, or any other ‘contentious issue.'”

“Think about what your likes, shares, reposts, use of hashtags and who you follow say about you, your personal biases and opinions.”

A spokesman for CAMERA, a US-based media monitoring group that promotes “accurate and balanced” reporting on Israel, said: “Despite the BBC’s Director General’s repeated promises to address the issue of inappropriate use of social media, as this example shows, little progress has been made on this front.”

“The BBC’s claim to produce accurate and impartial ‘trustworthy news’, including on the current war in the Middle East, continues to be compromised by its own staff, some of whom – as Ms Ali’s social media activity shows – are clearly woefully ill-informed on the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

In March this year, a UN report found that Hamas attackers had raped the bodies of women, citing “clear and convincing” evidence of numerous reports of sexual violence.

Pramila Patten, the UN special envoy on sexual violence and women, said there were “sufficient grounds” to believe that Hamas committed “sexual torture” in its October 7 attack on Israel.

A BBC spokesman said: “We do not comment on individual staff matters, but we take breaches of our social media policies very seriously and always take appropriate action where required.”

Shazia Ali was contacted for comment.