:00:00. > :00:07.At quarter to ten we will have The Film Review.
:00:08. > :00:09.But now on BBC News it's time for Newswatch.
:00:10. > :00:11.Hello, and welcome to Newswatch, with me, Samira Ahmed.
:00:12. > :00:16.As it emerges that police seized a Newsnight journalist's laptop
:00:17. > :00:21.under terrorism laws, is talking to Jihadis a crime?
:00:22. > :00:27.And should the BBC be broadcasting interviews with them?
:00:28. > :00:30.We will be discussing the issues around that police seizure shortly,
:00:31. > :00:33.but first the death on Wednesday of 16-year-old Bailey Gwynne after
:00:34. > :00:37.he had been stabbed at a school in Aberdeen has featured prominently on
:00:38. > :00:47.news bulletins over the past couple of days.
:00:48. > :00:53.The coverage gave rise to an objection of a kind familiar to
:00:54. > :01:21.regular watchers of this programme, from Iain Pailing:
:01:22. > :01:40.Well, we put that point to BBC News, and they told us:
:01:41. > :01:50.Now it is seven weeks since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader
:01:51. > :01:53.of the Labour Party and, initially, he was barely off of our television
:01:54. > :01:55.screens, being subjected to intense media scrutiny.
:01:56. > :01:58.While that hasn't exactly gone away, this week saw complaints that BBC
:01:59. > :02:01.News had been ignoring him unfairly after he asked this
:02:02. > :02:05.question of David Cameron six times at Prime Minister's Question Time.
:02:06. > :02:08.Will he confirm, right now, that tax credit cuts will not make anyone
:02:09. > :02:19.Well, although that exchange featured on Wednesday's lunchtime
:02:20. > :02:22.news, it didn't appear on the day's other BBC One bulletins,
:02:23. > :02:52.The US Grand Prix on Sunday presented BBC News teams with
:02:53. > :02:56.Highlights of the race were to be shown on BBC One straight after the
:02:57. > :02:59.late evening news bulletin, so for viewers keen not to find out the
:03:00. > :03:02.result beforehand the headlines at 10pm avoided giving the game away.
:03:03. > :03:06.And his eyes or on the prize, but did Lewis Hamilton do enough to
:03:07. > :03:10.win his third Formula 1 title at the US Grand Prix?
:03:11. > :03:13.I don't think it's too much of a spoiler now to reveal that,
:03:14. > :03:16.yes, Lewis Hamilton did win the race, and as a result the Formula 1
:03:17. > :03:19.championship, but before the sports presenter told viewers that, she did
:03:20. > :03:22.warn them that if they didn't want to find out they should leave
:03:23. > :03:29.But the classic 'look away now' alert doesn't really work online,
:03:30. > :03:32.and scores of viewers complained after seeing the results prominently
:03:33. > :03:34.announced on the BBC News websites, before the highlights had been
:03:35. > :04:00.Now on Wednesday one BBC journalist became the story.
:04:01. > :04:03.For the past couple of years, Secunder Kermani has been reporting
:04:04. > :04:05.for Newsnight on British born jihadis, interviewing several
:04:06. > :04:13.Here he is, talking to a friend of Ibrahim Kamara, the 19-year-old
:04:14. > :04:15.from Brighton, who was part of the Jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra,
:04:16. > :04:21.and is believed to have been killed in a US air strike last year.
:04:22. > :04:23.Today I spoke to Ibrahim's friend Amer Deghayes, also from Brighton.
:04:24. > :04:26.He and his younger brother are also fighting in Syria with Jabhat
:04:27. > :04:37.He came to visit my area and he stayed for a few days, and me
:04:38. > :04:40.and him were supposed to go back there to visit the brother back
:04:41. > :04:48.Jabhat al-Nusra, the group Ibrahim was part of,
:04:49. > :04:51.has been accused by human rights groups of atrocities, but Amer says
:04:52. > :04:55.On Wednesday it emerged that the police had seized Secunder
:04:56. > :04:58.Kermani's laptop this summer in order to read communications with
:04:59. > :05:01.a man in Syria who had publicly identified himself as a member
:05:02. > :05:09.The move caused some alarm among freedom of speech campaigners,
:05:10. > :05:26.and Newsnight editor Ian Katz had this to say:
:05:27. > :05:30.We asked whether someone from the BBC could talk to us about this on
:05:31. > :05:59.the programme, but they declined, pointing us towards this statement:
:06:00. > :06:01.There is another concern, too, though,
:06:02. > :06:04.articulated by Newswatch viewers on several previous occasions,
:06:05. > :06:06.that interviewing British Jihadis and reporting extensively on them
:06:07. > :06:12.effectively provides advertising to the organisations they join.
:06:13. > :06:24.In September Pauline Tweedie objected to coverage of the RAF's
:06:25. > :06:26.drone attack in Syria, which killed two nationals fighting
:06:27. > :06:39.And in another programme Paul Callus had this to say about coverage
:06:40. > :06:51.Well, I'm joined now from our Tunbridge Wells studio
:06:52. > :06:54.by Tim Luckhurst, who, having worked in newspapers and here at the
:06:55. > :06:56.BBC, is now professor of journalism at the University of Kent.
:06:57. > :06:59.Tim, on this particular seizure of the laptop and so on,
:07:00. > :07:05.Well, I think this is an example of the police using a very blunt
:07:06. > :07:07.instrument, the Terrorism Act 2000, to seize journalism's source
:07:08. > :07:10.material, and I think that that sets a really alarming precedent.
:07:11. > :07:12.The Terrorism Act allows journalists no opportunity to defend themselves
:07:13. > :07:24.I don't think you defend liberal democracy
:07:25. > :07:28.Let's face it - the way to silence obnoxious
:07:29. > :07:31.opinions is not to prevent them from being heard, but rather to allow
:07:32. > :07:34.them into the public domain and then to oppose them, to object to them
:07:35. > :07:45.We have a long history in this country,
:07:46. > :07:48.not simply of understanding that, but of trying the alternative and
:07:49. > :07:53.It was Margaret Thatcher, after all, who wanted to deny the IRA
:07:54. > :07:56.the oxygen of publicity by not allowing their voices to be
:07:57. > :08:02.broadcast on BBC or indeed any other broadcast outlet.
:08:03. > :08:04.It didn't work and her decision to stop their voices being
:08:05. > :08:09.It is interesting, Tim, that you say that, because I think some viewers,
:08:10. > :08:12.like the e-mails we've just heard there, feel this is different to the
:08:13. > :08:16.IRA - that a lot of the problem with Jihadis is that it is individuals
:08:17. > :08:18.going off and, you know, interviews with their families
:08:19. > :08:21.and their friends, where they're perhaps not being challenged as much
:08:22. > :08:24.as they should be, is essentially glamorising them and feeding a real
:08:25. > :08:28.problem that could come back when these people come back home.
:08:29. > :08:30.Where better to challenge them than on television, on radio, in
:08:31. > :08:35.Surely the way we challenge these offensive opinions, these obnoxious
:08:36. > :08:37.causes, is by hearing the nonsense their supporters
:08:38. > :08:40.sprout, contesting it and deploring it, and revealing how absurd it is.
:08:41. > :08:57.Even just that little clip we played there, when a guy is talking
:08:58. > :09:00.about the brothers and, no, he wasn't doing anything, in some cases
:09:01. > :09:03.there is a complete denial they are even involved in terrorism, and the
:09:04. > :09:05.concern that some of these interviews being broadcast or not
:09:06. > :09:08.challenging them, they are just giving them the oxygen of publicity?
:09:09. > :09:11.Well, if an interviewer does not challenge obnoxious opinion, that is
:09:12. > :09:14.a failure of the interviewer, but I don't think in this case we
:09:15. > :09:17.What we are talking about instead is something
:09:18. > :09:20.which is increasingly common in the United Kingdom and increasingly
:09:21. > :09:23.alarming, and that is the use of legislation which was not designed
:09:24. > :09:27.to be used against journalists to silence freedom of speech.
:09:28. > :09:29.I suppose people would say, they aren't stopping this reporter,
:09:30. > :09:31.any reporter, by a seizure, from reporting their story,
:09:32. > :09:35.but they might be trying to prevent a potential attack?
:09:36. > :09:38.I don't think there is any suggestion whatsoever that they are
:09:39. > :09:40.trying to prevent an attack in this case,
:09:41. > :09:43.and nobody at the BBC or anywhere else would object to the use of
:09:44. > :09:46.the Terrorism Act to prevent an attack, or to attempt to prevent an
:09:47. > :09:51.attack. That is of course the legitimate duty of
:09:52. > :09:54.the police and something for which we should be very grateful to them.
:09:55. > :10:03.In this case It was the use of the terrorism act to obtain information
:10:04. > :10:06.about a source who has publicly identified himself as a supporter of
:10:07. > :10:09.a terrorist organisation, whose name was already in the public domain.
:10:10. > :10:17.There was no secrecy about what Newsnight were doing and I believe
:10:18. > :10:21.that when the force of the Terrorism Act is used to obtain material from
:10:22. > :10:24.journalists in circumstances like this, one of the clear intentions is
:10:25. > :10:26.to deter journalists from investigating and talking to
:10:27. > :10:39.So you have no reservations whatsoever about the idea
:10:40. > :10:41.of interviewing Jihadists and putting their views on air?
:10:42. > :10:44.I have no concerns about acting within the law.
:10:45. > :10:46.We have appropriate laws against hate speech, we have appropriate
:10:47. > :10:51.That does not mean that we shouldn't seek to understand the views
:10:52. > :10:54.of people who have some sympathy with those who are promoting those
:10:55. > :11:03.I have no sympathy whatsoever for terrorist organisations.
:11:04. > :11:07.I am appalled by their activities, but I simply do not believe that we
:11:08. > :11:12.encourage opposition to them by forcing them underground,
:11:13. > :11:15.and I think that by doing so we may achieve the opposite
:11:16. > :11:23.Thank you for all your comments this week.
:11:24. > :11:25.If you want to share your opinions on BBC News
:11:26. > :11:30.and current affairs or even appear on the programme, you can call us.
:11:31. > :11:39.You can find us on Twitter, and do have a look at our website -
:11:40. > :11:50.We will be back to hear your thoughts about BBC News