“In his new role, he’ll work closely with the BBC World Service leadership team, ensuring the highest editorial standards are maintained at the international broadcaster,” the BBC Press Office said in its announcement.

“At this point, it seems that the BBC is completely unashamed of its editorial bias,” said the British volunteer-led charity Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) in a statement to The Algemeiner. “It is bewildering that, despite repeated calls for the broadcaster to call Hamas what it is — an antisemitic, genocidal terror group — the corporation has decided to double down and appoint someone who appears to have actively directed journalists not to describe terrorists in legally accurate terms. The fact that George Achi will be the Head of Editorial Quality and Compliance for the BBC World Service is pretty ironic and raises yet more questions for the BBC.”

StandWithUs called BBC’s hiring of Achi “absolutely unacceptable” in a statement on X. “When someone with such a history is put in charge of editorial standards… I guess ‘quality’ is a matter of perspective. Do better, @BBC,” the organization said.

In October 2023, shortly after the Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel — in which 1,200 people were murdered and 251 were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip — a memo leaked online showed that Achi told journalists at CBC to avoid referring to Hamas as a terrorist organization. He said in the memo, sent to CBC staff members, that referring to members of Hamas as “terrorists” is a matter of opinion and not fact. He made the comment even though Hamas is a designated terrorist organization in Canada — among several other countries — and after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referred to Hamas as a terrorist organization when condemning the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.

“Do not refer to militants, soldiers or anyone else as ‘terrorists,'” read the memo written by Achi. “The notion of terrorism remains heavily politicized and is part of the story. Even when quoting/clipping a government or a source referring to fighters as ‘terrorists,’ we should add context to ensure the audience understands this is opinion, not fact. That includes statements from the Canadian government and Canadian politicians. Please use fact-checked language, avoid loaded qualifiers, and anything that sounds like opinion. The story, with its content, speaks for itself.”

After the memo was leaked online, conservatives in Canada called for CBC to be investigated.

The CBC responded at the time by claiming the leaked memo was taken out of context. “We have since been asked multiple times why CBC News would ‘ban’ the use of the word ‘terrorist.’ The answer is clear: we most certainly do not ban it,” said CBC News editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon. “But CBC News does not itself designate specific groups as terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism, regardless of the region or the events, because these words are so loaded with meaning, politics, and emotion that they can end up being impediments to our journalism.”

The BBC was also criticized for repeatedly not labeling members of Hamas as “terrorists” in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre. A reporter who quit his job at the public service broadcaster for that reason said, “The BBC’s refusal to use the correct terminology is unjustified.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned the BBC for “its atrocious refusal to brand Hamas as a terrorist group.”