Thursday, January 29, 2015

Al Jazeera English: Don’t Say ‘Terrorist’ — ‘One Person’s Terrorist Is Another’s Freedom Fighter’ | TheBlaze.com

Al Jazeera English: Don’t Say ‘Terrorist’ — ‘One Person’s Terrorist Is Another’s Freedom Fighter’ | TheBlaze.com:

“We try to avoid describing anyone as a terrorist or an act as being terrorist. What we try to do is to say that ‘two men killed 12 people in an attack on the office of a satirical magazine.’ That’s enough, we know what that means and what it is,” Kafala said. “Terrorism is such a loaded word. The U.N. has been struggling for more than a decade to define the word and they can’t. It is very difficult to. We know what political violence is, we know what murder, bombings and shootings are and we describe them. That’s much more revealing, we believe, than using a word like terrorist which people will see as value-laden.”

Though he received criticism for his words, they do fall in line with BBC editorial guidelines, which say: “The word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution.”

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