If CBC’s goal is to provide fair, balanced, and fact-based reporting on Gaza, it is failing to do so. Instead, it has turned to Aboubaker Abed — a so-called “freelance journalist” in Gaza who in reality is a correspondent for Iran’s state-run propaganda “news” channel (propaganda mouthpiece), Press TV.

Despite being sanctioned by the Canadian government in 2022, Press TV continues to operate within Canada — and with Abed getting more and more airtime with CBC, it seems as though Press TV and its Iranian-backed agenda have found a willing amplifier and disseminator of its hate and disinformation, and a willing partner to grant Press TV undeserved credibility.

On January 15, Abed was interviewed by CBC News Chief Correspondent Adrienne Arsenault, and despite his scandalously anti-Israel and pro-Hamas social media activity, CBC News continues to interview him and give him an undue platform to mislead Canadians and the world writ large.

He also appeared in a January 27 interview entitled: “Journalist in Gaza talks with CBC News about reverse exodus in Gaza.” In an interview with CBC Anchor Andrew Nichols, Abed’s commentary shifted from describing Palestinian “elation” over returning to northern Gaza to outright accusations that Israel “wants to kill us, wants to destroy every single inch inside Gaza.”

This lengthy, uninterrupted rant included the sinister comment about how the ceasefire serves the “more than 1.1 million children who didn’t have anything to do with this war, which is a war against Palestinians.”

The omission of Hamas and its October 7, 2023 massacres is one thing — and perhaps it is unsurprising at this point. But to imply that Israel started this war and kept at it for 15 months for the sole purpose of killing Palestinians, and particularly targeting Palestinian children, is tantamount to a blood libel. And not surprisingly, this blood libel didn’t get challenged by the CBC’s host.

Abed’s attempt to portray Israel as the sole aggressor intent on killing all Palestinians would falter in the face of any mention of Hamas, its war crimes and crimes against humanity by fighting in civilian neighbourhoods and its oppressive tactics, the hostage crisis, and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that had targeted Israeli civilians since October 7th, 2023.

No challenge was similarly offered by Jayme Poisson when she hosted Abed on the January 31 episode of Front Burner, a CBC radio program / podcast.

The segment was mostly a reiteration of Abed’s previous appearances, with the same unfounded claims of “genocide” and same efforts to portray this war as an unprecedented “barbaric and brutal” catastrophe — one unlike any other in history, as if Gaza’s suffering exists in isolation from context, cause, or comparison.

At one point, CBC host Poisson emotionally proclaimed: “Oh my god… That was difficult to hear,” in reference to Abed’s claims of witnessing first-hand the carnage in Gaza. Again, it’s important to reiterate and contextualize that Abed works for the Iranian regime’s propaganda arm, which the Canadian government sanctioned in 2022.

Poisson did ask Abed how people “on the ground there [are] thinking about their relationship with Hamas,” but Abed quickly evaded, saying “Most people here in Gaza don’t have any political affiliation. Now, we know that Israel is the main reason behind what’s happening. (…) Who destroyed people’s houses? Is it Hamas? No, it’s not Hamas. It’s Israel. Who bombed my neighbour? It’s Israel. Who really made me or forced me to go through starvation? It’s Israel. It’s not Hamas.” Abed himself claimed he doesn’t have any political affiliations, hiding from the public that he regularly produces reports for Iran’s Press TV propaganda apparatus.

This is coming from an individual that has previously praised terrorism against Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah, praised Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah after his assassination for his aiding the “resistance in Gaza,” excused Hamas’ October 7, 2023 terror pogrom with a dangerous Hamas-sourced lie, and much more.

Without substantially acknowledging any of the false claims Abed made — that Israel is blocking aid, that it had intentions of “genocide and exterminating a whole population,” that Israel “targets” journalists — Poisson, much like CBC News’ other interviewers, turned Front Burner into a platform for unchallenged propaganda for Hamas and its patron, the Iranian regime.

To Abed, Gaza is both a concentration camp and a pre-war haven; Hamas is both a noble resistance movement and a non-existent political entity; Jews have no connection to the land of Israel, and also lived “in peace” with Muslims and Christians for centuries prior to the Zionist movement.

When journalists erase the October 7 massacre and ignore Hamas’ ongoing war crimes, they create space for propagandists like Abed to rewrite history with dangerous, libelous lies— not just about this war, but about Israel’s very existence.

Abed lamented on Front Burner: “You cannot really blame or punish others for something a few people have done. So, it’s not about Hamas or any political parties. (…) If this is a war against Hamas, why all those children have been killed?”

No one denies the devastation in Gaza and the tragic loss of innocent life there, but by continuously platforming Aboubaker Abed and by failing to disclose to CBC’s audiences that he is on the payroll of the Iranian regime and that he regularly expresses support for terrorist leaders and terror organizations, CBC is doing more than reporting — it is legitimizing and giving an undue platform to an extremist, ahistorical narrative while shielding Hamas from scrutiny.

This isn’t an isolated incident, either. A January 26 report by CBC journalist Yasmine Hassan depicted another Press TV journalist, Talat Abu Musabah, as being a legitimate journalist, again ignoring that he’s an employee of the Iranian regime propaganda channel. CBC merely referred to Press TV as being an “Iranian news agency”.

In so doing, CBC continues to flagrantly violated its own Journalistic Standards and Practices which requires its journalists to: “… make every effort to disclose the identity of interviewees and to give the context and explanations necessary for the audience to judge the relevance and credibility of their statements.”

CBC must apologize for continuing to platform and not challenge a hateful pro-Hamas journalist and for failing to disclose to its listeners and viewers that Abubaker Abed is paid by the Iranian regime and works for its propaganda arm, Press TV.