British Broadcasting Corporation NBH 04 A, Broadcasting House, Portland Face, Londen WIA IAA Telopione 020 8743 8000 From the DirectonGaneral 30 June 2015 Rehman Chishti MP House of Commons London SW1A 0AA rehman.chishti.mi arliament.uk Dear Mr Chishti Thank you for the letter from you and your colleagues, advocating the use of the term Da’esh. ‘As you know, there is no agreed description of the group which calls itself in Arabic, “al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham". Translation into English of the full name can be difficult because of different interpretations of the meaning of al-Sham. Hence ISIS, or ISIL, which the US government and the UK government prefer. Both these acronyms in English contain references to Islamic State, ie "Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham" (or "islamic State in Iraq and Syria) or "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”. There is no tradition as | understand it, of acronyms in Arabic and the word Da’esh is not an acronym of "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi iraq wa al-Sham" but is instead a pejorative name coined in Arabic by its enemies, including Assad supporters and other opponents in Syria. Unfortunately this term may give the impression of support for those who coined it and that would not preserve the BBC's impartiality. The BBC takes a common sense view when deciding how to describe organisations; we take our cue from an organisation's description of itself. And we seek descriptions which are comprehensible to our viewers, listeners and online users which lend themselves to use in headlines in news bulletins and online. For these reasons the BBC has used Islamic State as the name in English of the organisation known as “al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham'" in Arabic. And we have, typically, shortened this to IS. However, we have recognised that used on its own the name Islamic State could suggest that such a state exists and such an interpretation is potentially misleading. So, we have caveated the name “Islamic State” with wordswhich qualify it, e.g. “so called Islamic State”, “the Islamic State group”, “the Islamic State organisation”, “Islamic State extremists”, “Islamic State fighters” etc. | doubt, given the context we provide in our reporting, that anyone listening could be in any doubt what kind of an organisation Islamic State is. The Prime Minister made clear yesterday that he had no quarrel with the use of the term “so-called Islamic State” but that he objected to the use of Islamic State unqualified. So does the BBC. | hope you, and he, will be reassured that we will redouble our efforts to ensure that when we use the term Islamic State we will caveat it with qualifiers, typically the “Islamic State group”, to distinguish it from an. actual, recognised state. We will also continue to use other qualifiers when appropriate, e.g. extremists, militants, fighters etc. To avoid overuse we will also usually revert to IS after one mention of the Islamic State group. I hope this helps address your concerns. Best wishes ~My Han Tony Hall Director-General