The United Kingdom’s main newspaper regulator has ruled that it is not “significantly inaccurate” to refer to the majority of the Palestinian security prisoners released by Israel as part of ceasefire agreements with the Hamas terrorist group as “hostages.”
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), a government-recognized independent regulator, said in its April 30th decision that the characterization was permissible because the term “hostage” was “somewhat subjective.”
The ruling followed a complaint made in January by the U.K. branch of CAMERA, CameraUK, against The National, a Scottish newspaper that had referred to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails as “hostages.”
According to Adam Levick, CAMERA’s U.K. co-editor, The National’s characterization in a headline of 369 Palestinian prisoners as hostages was a “gross misrepresentation.”
The headline was a breach of the IPSO editors’ code, because “it puts on equal moral footing” Israelis taken hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel and Palestinian prisoners, “most of whom were members of a proscribed terrorist group and were convicted of violent offences,” said Levick.
The BBC, which is covered by a different regulator, made an on-air correction after describing Israeli hostages in Gaza as “prisoners.”
