The Parliament building in downtown Beirut. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today/File photo)
BEIRUT — Former BBC Arabic journalist Nada Abdelsamad, who was suspended from her job in October due to a tweet about the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, is set to testify against her suspension to Lebanon’s Parliament on Thursday.
She is scheduled to speak to the Parliament’s Media and Information Committee, MP and committee member Paula Yacoubian told L’Orient Today, adding that “what happened should not go unnoticed.”
It was not immediately clear what actions the committee might be able to take following the testimony.
On Oct. 7, as Hamas carried out its unprecedented attack on Israel — which 1,200 people — Abdelsamad retweeted a tweet of a video showing Israeli citizens taking cover. The original tweet had been posted by Al-Sharq editor-in-chief Jaber al-Harmi and reportedly referred to Hamas fighters as “the resistance” and Israeli citizens as “settlers.”
Abdelsamad told L’Orient Today she retweeted the video because it provided insight into “how big” the Hamas operation was.
She and another six journalists working with BBC Arabic were suspended for allegedly breaching BBC’s guidelines.
American and pro-Israeli watchdog Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) stated on Oct. 16 that its Arabic researchers brought the journalists’ social media posts to the attention of the BBC.
The posts included “statements justifying the killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas,” referring to the Oct. 7 attack as a “morning of hope,” allegedly mocking relatives of an Israeli grandmother kidnapped by Hamas and saying that “Israel’s prestige is crying in the corner,” CAMERA said.
“We take allegations of breaches of our editorial and social media guidelines with the utmost seriousness, and if and when we find breaches we will act, including taking disciplinary action,” a spokesperson for the publicly-funded British broadcaster told The Telegraph, a conservative British newspaper. They did not clarify what the guidelines included.
A BBC spokesperson told L’Orient Today they do not have further comment.
The tweet in question does not appear to still be published on X.
A long career, then a lawsuit
Abdelsamad had worked for the BBC for 27 years and is also known for her book “Wadi Abu Jamil,” in which she paints a rare portrait of the people who once lived in Beirut’s now-destroyed Jewish quarter.
“The first reaction from the BBC was suspension and an opening of a probe, and in the email, I was told [by BBC] that they were warned by The Telegraph that there was undoubtedly a breach [of editorial guidelines]. If you are already accusing me, why hold the investigation?” she told L’Orient Today.
“The Telegraph gave me the right to respond but the BBC forbade me from it. The BBC replied with more aggression, that they would hold an investigation and take measures instead of protecting us.”
In response, on Nov. 27, Abdelsamad filed a defamation lawsuit against the BBC.
“I filed a lawsuit in November asking for an apology from the BBC on social media. I became a ‘Hamas journalist’ who called for the killing of Jewish people. I was accused of being unprofessional and their headline was that there was an investigation of the breach of BBC guidelines when I worked with them for 27 years. I also asked in the lawsuit for compensation for employment because of the suspension.”
Asked if she would go back to working for the BBC if they decided to rehire her, Abdelsamad said: “This is not on the table.”