Talk:Submissions/The current state of the BLP problem
Important issue. Geraldshields11 (talk) 13:07, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Murder of Meredith Kercher Article
Wikipedia's commitment to BLP issues is very much in question. The BLP violations against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the The Murder of Meredith Kercher article are grave. Many Wikipedians think the most serious violation of the BLP policy was against the journalist John Siegenthaller. In fact the harm caused to Knox and Sollecito by Wikipeida's irresponsible coverage of their case was 10,000 times worse than anything ever faced by Siegenathaller.
Knox and Sollecito were accused of the 2007 murder of Knox's British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Italy. The case became a media sensation in Europe where the two were demonized in the tabloid press. As the case progressed many highly reliable sources in the US called into question the fairness of the proceedings against the two. The list includes four hour long CBS documentaries, three retired FBI agents, a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist, an American Judge, and many other respected journalists. A proposed presentation for the London event that talks about real BLP issues is available here.
The problem with the Wikipedia article is that it does not include the commentary of the many RS who have criticized the trial. Not one of the RS identified here is included -- Not one!! Last Fall three of these RS banned from the Wikipedia article were brought in by US Sen Maria Cantwell to brief the US Congress on the case. This information is being withheld from the readers because the British administrators who implemented the blocks on the topic disagreed with their POVs. Here is what Judge Heavey said before the US Congress:
- “This four year Italian opera is a farce; it is a fiction. The criminals are those who perpetrated a false accusation against two good young people. These police and prosecutors lied, cheated, and stole the innocence of two good young people. They are the criminals.” -- Judge Michael Heavey
The underlying problem was serious administrator misconduct that Wikipedia's ARBCOM lacked the integrity to address. The article was dominated by British administrators who were convinced of Knox and Sollecito's guilt. These administrators quickly blocked each and every editor who challenged the neutrality of the article.
Here are some interesting links
(2) Groundreport article about Wikipedia Coverage
(5)Powerpoint Presentation given at a Wikipedia New York meetup
There is an additional irony that those with an interest in BLP issues should consider. The administrators who implemented the blocks on the topic often made false allegations of BLP violations against those they sought to remove from the discussion. Their claims involved the prosecutor (Giuliano Mignini) and another person convicted of the crime (Rudy Guede). The fact is that there were no BLP violations by any of the blocked editors.
I hope that you will address this issue in your talk. Those who believe that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent are not permitted to edit the article. That needs to change.