Talk:Jack Letts

I struck "protective" from the term "protective custody"

1. The term "protective custody" is not a neutral term. Normally, it is used for individuals who are being held for their own protection because authorities assert they are a risk to themselves -- they aren't mentally competent and might hurt themselves. Here, where I live, someone can be held in secure mental health ward, for something like a week, for a mental health assessment, upon the assessment of a single doctor. To be held longer a panel of three doctors who have reviewed the assessment performed during that initial detention, have to agree they are still not mentally competent to be released on their own.

   I don't believe there is any record Letts is being held on a mental health concern. I wonder whether Kurdistan even has a robust enough mental health system to have instituted a system for protective custody. If they were really holding him over a mental health conern I am sure they would have agreed to deport him to the UK, as soon as possible.

2. Only a few newspapers have used this term "protective custody". Our policies would allow us to say something like. "Letts has been held by Kurdish authorities since June 2017. No charges have been laid against him. The Oxford Mail characterized his detention as "protective custody". A petition his parents wrote said Letts had "'disappeared' in a Guantanamo-style 'black site'" and was being held incommunicando.

   I checked. No news sources are reporting the Kurds are claiming they are holding Letts as a POW. If he was being held as a POW, they would be required to allow him to send and receive mail.

   If he is not being held as a POW, or under some other provision in the Geneva Conventions, it is a violation of international law to hold him without charging him.

The wikipedia is supposed to be written from a neutral point of view. We are not supposed to take sides. Using the term "protective custody", without attributing it to a particular authority, does not comply with WP:NPOV. It implies there is nothing extraordinary with holding Letts indefinitely, without laying charges against him.

There is an Australian blogger named Zaky Mallah, who traveled to Syria in 2014hortly after the Arab Spring. In his blog, when he was in Syria, and when he returned to Australia, he wrote about how Australians could help support Syrians who opposed Bashir al-Assad's regime, without violating an Australian law barring Australians from traveling their to fight. Mallah told his readers that one could support the resistance, without violating Australian law, if one stayed behind the front lines, and worked in a hospital. He wrote that those seeking martyrdom, would not be violating the law if they carried a flag, not a gun.

After offering this advice, for years, an Australian newspaper wrote about his advice, triggering his arrest. But the courts sided with him.

The reason I bring up this example is to illustrate that it is possible that Letts may have voluntarily travelled to ISIS territory, without violating UK law.

If newspapers routinely asserted he was in "protective custody", it might be worth mention in the article. But, since only a handful of newspapers have used the term, I don't think it is worth mention in the article. Geo Swan (talk) 11:52, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Update November 2017

He has now been charged as being a member of ISIS, so updated with source. Also, saying he "escaped ISIS territory" is very npov. The Kurdish authorities say he was captured fleeing the war zone in Raqqa, so until the court case it is best left as a neutral statement — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:20E:2900:DD81:46A3:F363:C15F (talk) 19:38, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, you supplied a reference to an article that said he had been charged. I checked that reference. Missing was any reference to what the charges were. It implied that the charging body was not a recognized nation, with an established body of laws -- that, rather, he was being charged by quasi-independent Syrian Kurdistan. If the charges are from a non-state actor the article needs to say that.

I think this needs to be amended. I question whether the lead should say he was charged, when we can't say what those charges are. I question whether the lead should say he was charged, when the charging body would be a non-state actor. Geo Swan (talk) 01:08, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

• please dont do original research. The source is accepted, and there are many more, so that is what is posted. Please discuss here before making such big changes?2A00:23C4:20E:2900:8473:7EE3:B674:ED89 (talk) 13:33, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

• Please don't engage in reckless edits. Are you disputing that Letts is a joint citizen of the UK and Canada? Your reckless edit removed that.

• As to whether Letts has been charged, every single article I checked, that had a headline saying he had been charged, did not substantiate that claim in the body of the article. They all echoed the reporting in the BBC, the first source to make such reports, that the Kurds acknowledged which prison Letts was being held in, and that local police officials were investigating his case. Investigating his case is not the same as being charged. That old UK show Prime Suspect had much of the drama focus on whether investigators could assemble enough evidence to justify charging the suspect, within the UK imposed deadline of 72 hours. If that show was accurate UK detectives were authorized to hold suspects, without charge, for 72 hours. In countries with less respect for the rights of suspects an individual can expect a much longer stay, before being charged. Most of the guys in Guantanamo have been held for fifteen years without ever being charged.

  As I wrote above, if Letts really has been charged, we have to say what actual crimes he has been charged with. I see no reporting that states what he has been charged with, so we shouldn't say he has been charged.

  IP user 2A00:23C4:20E:2900:DD81:46A3:F363:C15F, are you the same individual as 2A00:23C4:20E:2900:8473:7EE3:B674:ED89? Could you make a point of clarifying you are a single individual, using multiple IP addresses, anytime you weigh in in a discussion, using multiple IDs? Is there a reason you aren't establishing one normal wiki-ID, and using it for all your edits? I strongly encourage you to do so, in the interests of accountability and clear discussion.

  Also, could you please refresh your memory as to what is, and what isn't original research? I don't believe there was anything in the edit you reverted that could be described as original research. Geo Swan (talk) 14:21, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

• Forgot to login, sorry about that. As they officials that have arrested him are defacto the ones that run that region, then their name in the lead is fine, but we dont need to try and imply any doubt of their authority. Also, the sources are quite clear that he has been charged with being a member of isis, so that is what should be in the leadSimply-the-truth (talk) 15:09, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
• This is what the source says:

'Jihadi Jack' charged with being IS member, Kurdish officials say

• So thats what we put in the article. We dont try and word it to fit what we think the situation is, we put what the source says. What you wrote re the TV show, and what are the charges and evidence etc is original research, its not what the source says so we dont put it in. And implying that this areas officials are less diligent that our own is a not good really? And he wasnt imprisned, he was arrested, again what the sources saySimply-the-truth (talk) 15:12, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

• First, a request - we have a very widely accepted convention on how to format our replies on talk pages, and other fora... All the paragraphs of our reply indented exactly once from the comment we are replying to. Your final paragraph wasn't indented at all, while your first paragraph had a confusing extra indentation. The more followup comments a thread gets the more essential it is for everyon to observe this identation.

  Someone can arrive at a discussion, and want to respond to one of the comments in the middle. When everyone follows the convention, knowledgeable readers can tell precisely which comment they are responding to, merely from the followup comments indentation.

  And that well established system falls apart when one or more participants choose to use non-standard indentation, as you did.

  I would really appreciate it if you also followed the standard indentation convention. Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 18:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

• This edit removed attribution to the BBC, with the edit summary "many more than the BBC reported it. Again, it seems like you are trying to imply something with your edits?"

  Yes, other RS covered the developments of October 28th. If you look at the others many of them say "as first reported by the BBC", or reasonable equivalent.

  The BBC's role in the reporting is significant. It should be mentioned, because later RS are basing their reporting on the BBC's reporting. If it turns out the BBC over-stated things, they get to say, "Oh, we didn't report he had been charged, we merely reported that the BBC reported he had been charged." The wikidocuments that explained how to neutrally cover contrversial topics used to use Hitler as an example. It used to advise us to never write "Adolph Hitler was evil," even if we were sure every other wikipedia contributor would personally agree with this sentiment. Rather, it advised, we could say something like: "Hannah Arendt called Adolph Hitler evil in her widely quoted treatise on the Banality of Evil".

• Simply-the-truth, wrote -- "This is what the source says: 'Jihadi Jack' charged with being IS member, Kurdish officials say"

  This is not a pedantic point. This is what the headline says. This is important because headlines are written by editors, not reporters. The first sentence says something similar "A 21-year-old man from Oxford has been charged with being a member of so-called Islamic State, officials from the Kurdish region of Syria have said." Are there any jurisdictions on Planet Earth that list "being a member of so-called Islamic State". The statement you rely upon is clearly a paraphrase of what these unnamed officials said, as no criminal code is going to use the phrase "so-called Islamic State". I

• The BBC article says: "It is the first time Kurdish forces have confirmed the capture of Mr Letts as a prisoner of war." It also says: "She told the BBC that its judicial bodies respected international human rights law and were treating Mr Letts in accordance with the Geneva Convention and international human rights standards."

This article, published on October 30th in the Oxfordshire Guardian, says:

"Sinam Mohamad, the European representative of DFNS, said they ‘were treating Mr Letts in accordance with the Geneva Convention and international human rights standards’. "This is the first time Kurdish forces have confirmed the capture of Mr Letts as a prisoner of war."

It was published two days after the BBC's initial report. Note what else it says:

"Officials from the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) – who are fighting against IS – issued a statement to the BBC over the weekend stating that Mr Letts is currently held in a Qamishli prison in northern Syria."

Two days later, and other RS are still relying on the BBC's interpretation? I suggest this confirms that Kurdish authorities did not issue a public press release. Rather they released this statement directly to the BBC, and the BBC did not share the original text of the statement, only their interpretation of it.

This is why it is extremely important to attribute to the BBC.

The Geneva Conventions define several important terms, including Prisoner of War and lawful combatant. Signatories to the Conventions agree that lawful combatants are entitled to POW status, and a key element of POW status is that POWs can not be charged with crimes. The Third Geneva Convention specifies that captives apprehended on the battlefield are always supposed to be treated as if they were POWs (and so cannot be charged), unless a "competent tribunal" determines that they lapsed from compliance from the criteria the Conventions established for lawful combatants.

If the Kurds were still treating him as a POW, on October 30th, that means he had not been stripped of the POW protection against prosecution.

Could you please be careful not to state or imply other contributors are lapsing from compliance with no original research? WP:NOR applies in article space. When good faith contributors discuss how to interpret sources, in an article's talk page, or some other non-article-space fora, they are not lapsing from NOR. What I put in the article strictly complied with NOR. In stating how I think the sources should be interpreted, here on this talk page I am not doing anything different than what you are doing, when you state YOUR interpretation, which seems to be that since multiple RS have asserted that Letts was charged we can state he was charged, without attributing this assertion to the RS that reported it. Geo Swan (talk) 20:19, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

disagree with virually everything you say, sorry. And the condesending tone re the way I have an opinion, and even the way I edit, is getting annoying I have to admit. THis is something you seem to have been warned about quite a few times before? I state again, we use only accepted sources, and we use what they say. We dont interpret these sources and then change the wording to what we think they mean or show, which you are doing here. And the BBC issue, there is for every news story an agency that reports it first, as the BBC did here. Doesnt mean then that you ignore all the other sources because they refernece the first report, that simply doesnt make senseSimply-the-truth (talk) 21:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

• You wrote something I consider incomplete: "I state again, we use only accepted sources, and we use what they say."

We DO rely on RS -- that is what you mean by "accepted sources", correct? And we do rely on the judgement of RS, even when it disagrees with our personal interpretation.

1. One important thing missing from your comment is that when we quote, summarize, paraphrase RS we are supposed to make sure our coverage is written using a neutral voice, even when our RS don't try to write using a neutral voice. This requires interpretation. It is not possible to summarize or paraphrase anything, without first coming to an understanding of it. Understanding is not possible without interpretation.
2. You removed the attribution to the BBC I added. I am repeating this point because I think it is a very important point you haven't addressed.
3. You wrote: "We dont interpret these sources and then change the wording to what we think they mean or show, which you are doing here." I am notintending to make you mad, STT, but it seems to me that you have (1) interpreted the sources yourself. The BBC's reporting said Letts "has been charged with being a member of so-called Islamic State." When you asserted that Letts had been charged, you chose to drop the "so-called" from the charge. Okay -- why? I think you know that, in May, when he actually started his Kurdish captivity, he was alternately reported to have been captured, and to have surrendered. When your coverage baldly asserts, without attribution, in the wikipedia's voice, that he was captured, you have chosen to ignore those RS. So, why shouldn't the rest of us seeing this as an instance of you interpreting the sources?
4. You wrote: "And the BBC issue, there is for every news story an agency that reports it first, as the BBC did here." Sorry, I am not sure I understand this sentence. But there is something important that you are not addressing. The BBC didn't simply report first. The BBC reporting relied on a statement given to them by unnamed officials. They did not release this document. This is sometimes called an "exclusive". Other RS's reporting is based on the BBC's exclusive access to this document. So, sorry, I think itsimply incorrect to say the BBC reported first.
5. No one is arguing that we IGNORE the other RS. If other RS had been able to make contact with officials of their own, I'd say place almost equal reliance on the later RS. But they didn't find their own contacts, their own leads. Yes, I think that makes them much less important than the BBC. I placed a key paragraph of the BBC report next to the same paragrpah from the Telegraph report you linked. The two paragraph used identical wording, identical punctuation. The articles weren't completely identical. The Telegraph added something new -- the assertion that Letts had been "arrested". So, why would you add the assertion that Letts had been "arrested", without attributing it to the first reporting that made that claim? Geo Swan (talk) 01:33, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh and by the way, the ruling powers in that area at the moment, the ones you keep trying to imply are not legit etc. They havent been aknowledged as a state yet (you are correct about that) so are not bound by the Geneva conventions, so if they want to arrest a POW, they canSimply-the-truth (talk) 21:23, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

• Sorry, the point is not whether unrecognized Kurdistan is obliged to follow the Geneva Conventions.

Could you please review the response of "Sinam Mohamad, the European representative of DFNS" to claims from Letts parents that he is being held in a kind of Kurdish Guantanamo. The BBC writes:

She told the BBC that its judicial bodies respected international human rights law and were treating Mr Letts in accordance with the Geneva Convention and international human rights standards.

An official spokesperson went on the record to say Letts was being treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. This official statement is not consistent to the BBC's reporting that Letts has been charged.

Are you saying you believe the BBC's interpretation of a statement from unnamed Kurdish officials, who would not go on the record, over the on the record statment of of an official spokesperson, who did go on the record? Are you saying you want the rest of us to ignore the official spokesperson, and accept a possibily distorted account from anonymous officials? Okay. Could you please explain why we should ignore Ms Sinam Mohamed, the official spokesperson? Geo Swan (talk) 00:13, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Im sorry, I have no clue what point you are trying to argue now? They can say Letts is being treated in accordance with the GC, but they can still arrest him, as they are not bound by it. Hard to comment on the quote without a source to read it at? It you would rather put "held" by the officials, or "imprisoned" rather than arrested I think that would be OK? But not the fact that you want to imply that one1 source has reported it (the BBC) when there are many sources that have reported it. And the fact he has been charged as being a member of ISIS is not in doubt at allSimply-the-truth (talk) 13:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

• Callling Simply-the-truth... I don't mean to be mean, or pompous, but, I think it should be recorded here, for the record, that no bbc article, since the one you cited, claims Kurdish authorities charged Letts, as shown in "Jack+Letts"&num=100&newwindow=1&safe=off&client=tablet-android-alco&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqrbihk5XdAhU3wMQHHc2RCewQ_AUICCgA&biw=1280&bih=800&dpr=1 this google search.

  STT, the wiki-id you chose, seems to contradict a key clause in WP:VERIFY -- a key policy. What we write here is not supposed to aim to be "true". It is supposed to aim to be verifiable. This is a reflection of human limitations. We aren't capable of reliably determining the truth. Determining what is verifiable, from reliable sources, is a much easier task. Sometimes that poses a difficult choice for us, when all the reliable sources say something we disagree with, we can either walk away from that topic, or fairly quote, paraphrase references we disagree with. Geo Swan (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Where does the nickname "Jihadi Jack" belong in the article...

In this edit Simply-the-truth restored a clause to the article's first sentence -- "nicknamed 'Jihadi Jack' by the press" -- with the edit summary "no idea why this was removed, it is in the sources"

I did not remove the nickname from the article. Rather, when I added an {{infobox}} template I filled the field it had for nicknames, aliases and other alternate names, with his nickname. It is routine to put aliases and nicknames in the infobox. This provides consistency across articles. As to whether the nickname came from the press, does STT mean our RS explicitly state the nickname was applied by the press? Or does STT merely mean the press USED the nickname. Do we know it wasn't security officials who first coined the nickname, and reporters picked it up from them? Guantanamo intelligence officials coined lots of nicknames, and other phrases, like "dirty thirty" -- thirty captives that, for years, they claimed were thirty Osama bin Laden bodyguards.

Anyhow, I question whether a disparaging nickname like this belongs in an article's very first sentence. Geo Swan (talk) 20:42, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

• you did remove it, strange that you now claim you didnt. Every source there is re Letts uses this nickname for him, literally every one. Doesn't matter who coined it first, he is known by it and a lot pf people will search for this article using that nickname. Again, all your edits really do show that you have an opinion of this, and you seem unable to allow anything to be posted that disagrees with your take on the situation?Simply-the-truth (talk) 21:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Simply-the-truth, could you please be more careful? You wrote, above, "you did remove it, strange that you now claim you didnt [sic]." It is as if you didn't really read what I wrote. I explicitly said I moved the alias to the alias field in the {{infobox}}, that is completely consistent with my assertion that "I did not remove the nickname from the article."

As to your challenge that "all your edits really do show that you have an opinion of this"... Many experienced contributors try to avoid voicing vague concerns like this one. You, I, any good faith contributor, should feel free to voice civil good faith concerns about other contributors edits, but it is really best to be specific, and use diffs. I asked you, before, if you had learned how to use diffs. If you haven't learned yet, there are wikidocuments that will tell you how. It is really helpful to use them. Sorry, but not being specific can not only unnecessarily escalate tension, it robs your correspondent offering a clarification or correction that could ease your mind over your concern.

Every contributor intelligent enough to make worthwhile edits is going to have personal opinions. Commonly, contributors, including you and I, formed those opinions so early in our lives that we are tempted to consider OUR personal opinions as obvious facts, so obvious they don't require explanation. What this means is that any time we think the other party is lapsing from our policies on neutrality we owe it to ourselves and to the project, as a whole, to really consider the possibility that the other party is actually in compliance, and that it is we who have a bias, but one we adopted when we were so young we have to work to recognize that bias is not, sorry "Simply the truth".

Please remember that the Verifiability policy, one of our most fundamental, says our goal should not be "truth", but verifiability. Consider the question of whether Letts has been charged. If Kurdish authorities had issued an official statement that he had been charged, we could cite that official statement. But, in this case, all we have are an interpretation, by some BBC reporters, than an unpublished, unofficial statement says he has been charged. Geo Swan (talk) 21:42, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Shouldn't we be using alternatives to asserting Letts was arrested...

In this edit and several other edits Simply-the-truth has amended the article to assert that Letts was "arrested".

However the recent reporting he or she is relying on all assert that Kurdish authorities claim they continue to treat Letts as a POW. Some of the reporting from months ago explicitly stated he surrendered. Other reporting explicitly stated Kurdish authorities captured him.

POWs surrender, or are captured. Criminal suspects are arrested. If Kurdish authorities really consider Letts a POW I don't believe it is neutral to assert he was arrested. Geo Swan (talk) 20:53, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Nope arrested is clearly the correct term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:8D80:620:DD8F:B26:F0B9:46AD:93C0 (talk) 00:47, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

• 2605:8D80:620:DD8F:B26:F0B9:46AD:93C0 -- are you really Simply-the-truth? I know I asked you this already, could you PLEASE always log in before you edit? We should all feel accountable to the rest of the community here, for what we do or say. A failure to log in means other contributors don't know who is making your edits. I can't emphasize this enough. Please.

• "Nope"? Is that really your best attempt at a meaningful and substantive counter-argument? Please try again. Try harder. Geo Swan (talk) 10:16, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

• What do RS say?Slatersteven (talk) 13:43, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
  • RS said he was captured, or surrendered. See above for details. Geo Swan (talk) 16:38, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Links please. Ohh and please stop bullet pointing, it does not emphasise anything.Slatersteven (talk) 19:40, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

• Geo Swan please stop with the personal attacks. That comment wasnt me, and to imply it straight away is offensive. Even if I forgot to login and comment, that's my problem, stop telling others what you want them to do, PLEASE. But it wasn't me. AGAIN, all the sources, ALL OF THEM, sa he was arrested, so thats what we post in the article. Again, you are trying to change what the sources actually say to something you want to be posted in the article because it fits with your biased opinion of the subject. We are all biased, no offence meant, but you want to impose yours on the article and then complain when others see it differently from you. That's why we use what the sources say. They says he was arrested, simple reallySimply-the-truth (talk) 21:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

• 2605:8D80:620:DD8F:B26:F0B9:46AD:93C0 is not you? That is great! I am glad to heear that the unhelpful and unsubstantive comment was from someon else.

In my opinion, voicing civil good faith questions, voicing civil good faith expressions of concern, over editorial issues, are not personal attacks.

The link to the 2017-10-28 Telegraph article], that you offered below, does say Letts was arrested. I stand corrected, there are some articles that characterize his apprehension that way. But are you really calling on me to provide links to the articles that characterize his apprehension as the result of a capture, or a surrender. If you have been workking on the article I amsure you have seen those articles for yourself.

You wrote: "...you are trying to change what the sources actually say to something you want to be posted in the article because it fits with your biased opinion of the subject. We are all biased, no offence meant, but you want to impose yours on the article and then complain when others see it differently from you." Okay, I am going to voice what I regard as a civil, good faith expresion of concern. It is a mistake to interprt this a personal attack.

First, please understand that we use sources, RS, that used biased language, that are written from a biased POV. Our goal is to provide unbiased coverage of our topics. That means we should try to use unbiased language, in our coverage.

Case in point, you can't link to a public press release from Kurdish authorities, stating the charges, because the Kurds did not make a public press release. The BBC say they were given a "statement" by Kurdish officials. I already provided a link, in the section above, to an article published on 2017-10-30 -- two days after the BBC's scoop, that responsibly says the source of their reporting is the BBC's reporting.

October 28th is almost two weeks ago. If you can find recent reporting based on the BBC making this statement publicly available, or recent reporting based on Kurdish authorities making a public press release, or a public interview, that would be great! A public interview, or a public press release will very likely name the Kurdish spokesmen. If a Kurdish spokesman went on record saying Letts had been charged, naming the charge, we wouldn't merely say Letts had been charged, we would then say something like: "On November 11, 2017, independent Kurdistan's Deputy Secretary of Justice issued a press release that said Letts had been charged with conspiracy to murder civilians, on November 10."

You have mischaracterized what I said. I haven't argued the article can't say he was arrested, or that he has been charged, only that, if our article says he was arrested, we attribute this assertion to the source we took it from. This is what our policy requires. Do not interpret this assertion as a personal attack. I think if you check our policies, in more detail, you too will conclude this is what our policies require.

If we have RS that characterize his apprehension as a capture, a military capture, and others that characterize it as a surrender, and yet others that characterize it as an arrest, one of our choices is to use wording that could apply to capture, surrender or civilian arrest. Another choice, less preferable, in my opinion, would be to devote a paragraph informing our readers that different sources assert capture, surrender or arrest.

I am not going to get bent out of shape that you have mischaracterized my position. That is why we have discussions, so we can understand one another better. Can you understand how it could seem to other contributors that you are wedded to the two terms, charged, and arrested? You removed the attribution to the BBC, which I am afraid really concerns me. Can you understand how you could be seen as reluctant to discuss alternate wording that accurately covers ALL the reporting?

The Telegraph article you linked to -- I am going to ask you to compare a key passage with the corresponding passage from the BBC article:

Telegraph version	BBC version
A statement from the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) - a self-declared autonomous region - said Mr Letts had been taken to a prison in Qamishli, Rojava, northern Syria.	A statement given to the BBC from the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) - a self-declared autonomous region - said Mr Letts had been taken to a prison in Qamishli, northern Syria.

Sorry, but I think I have established that all the reporting that asserts Letts has been charged is based on the BBC's original article, not on the other RS confirming this news through their own contacts with the Kurds. If you think you can offer RS reporting where reporters have confirmed this report through their own contacts, please, share it with us.

I already pointed out a key reason to be careful about the BBC's reporting, that all the other reporting is based on. You have asserted here, and inserted into the article, that RS report that Letts "has been charged with being a member of ISIS". I will quote that key passage again.

A 21-year-old man from Oxford has been charged with being a member of so-called Islamic State, officials from the Kurdish region of Syria have said.

Did the US charge any Guantanamo captives of "being a member of so-called Islamic State" or "being a member of al Qaeda"? No, the closest thing was the charge that individuals had "provided material support for terrorism". The four men who pled guilty to this charge are now officially innocent, because an appeals court ruled that this was not a meaningful charge.

Could some other country, or jurisdiction, level a charge of "being a member of the Islamic State"? Maybe, but the phrase "so-called" makes clear that what you call a clear charge is, at best, a bad paraphrase of a charge. It is not a charge, itself.

Can you understand why it concerns me that you are simply dropping the "Islamic State" phrase from what you say Letts was charged with?

One last point that suggests more caution should be used... please note that the BBC did not name the Kurdish officials. If you follow US politics you will see lots of instances where highly respected newspapers, like the Washington Post or the New York Times, who will write something, "The Post has been informed assertion XYZ, according to officials who insisted on anonymity, because this information has not yet been made public"| Geo Swan (talk) 23:23, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

several sources say he was arrested, such as this one: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/28/oxford-muslim-convert-jihadi-jack-charged-member-isil/ But all souces say he has been charged with being a member of ISISSimply-the-truth (talk) 21:14, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh and by the way, the ruling powers in that area at the moment, the ones you keep trying to imply are not legit etc. They havent been aknowledged as a state yet (you are correct about that) so are not bound by the Geneva conventions, so if they want to arrest a POW, they can Simply-the-truth (talk) 21:41, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Can we please lean to indent properly please?Slatersteven (talk) 23:19, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Also can we read sources, not cherry pick them the oxfordshire Guardian (a local paper by the way) it says "A 21-year-old man from Oxford has been charged with being a member of the so-called Islamic State and is being held in northern Syria, Kurdish forces have confirmed.".Slatersteven (talk) 13:06, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Please see answer above re the "arrest" bit. But all sources say he has been charged as being a member of ISIS, so there is no discussion with that point I would say. If he is eventually tried and found guilty or not in the future has no relevance to what he has been accused and charged with now, however much Geo-Swan wants to comapre this case to his own views on Guantanamo Bay. They are not the sameSimply-the-truth (talk) 13:51, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

True, and I am still waiting to see a source that says he was not arrested.Slatersteven (talk) 13:57, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

• Are you simply asking for references that don't use the word "arrested", but use "captured" or "surrenderd" instead? A google search for "Jack Letts" OR "Jihadi Jack" capture OR captured is such a crucial element of wikipedia contribution it simply never occurred to me you would need someone else to do this for you.

If you are asking for sources that say "Letts was not arrested, he was not given a civilian arrest, he was detained after a capture, a military capture, by a militia patrol..." that is not a reasonable request. Reporters aren't recognizing a controversy, so they aren't going to spend column inches saying anything like that.

1. Note, the Telegraph link STT already supplied says capture, not arrest His middle-class parents have revealed a series of texts and audio messages which detail his experience after being captured by Kurdish forces, the Mail on Sunday reported.
2. This is also the first time Kurdish forces have confirmed the capture of Mr Letts as a prisoner of war.
3. Letts said his son was trying to flee into Turkey from territory controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) when he was captured by security forces in northern Syria. They have charged him with being a member of ISIS.
4. He finally escaped on his own this May, only to be captured by the Kurdish YPG militia.

These are only the first references google tossed up. Do I need to go on and list additional ghits?

Note: some of these pages DO contain the word arrest -- but in the links to the headlines of unrelated articles. The Peterborough Examiner article does use the word arrest in the body of the article -- but referring to the arrest of Letts parents, in the UK, not to Letts apprehension in Syria. Geo Swan (talk) 14:44, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes it is a reasonable request, capture can mean arrest. So unless someone disputes (explicitly) that he was arrested we have no reason to assume he was not arrested.Slatersteven (talk) 15:18, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Have RS dropped the claim Letts was charged?

Short answer? Yes, I think they have... Note results of a google news search of "Jihadi Jack" OR "jack letts" charges OR charged OR charge

While there are RS that have mentioned Letts, that also used the word "charge", when you actually read those articles you find that they use the word "charge" when talking about someone else -- generally Letts's parents. Geo Swan (talk) 01:49, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Short answer, no. There have been no new statments released or other developments re the charges. Please stick to the current, properly sourced facts for the article. As soon as the subject is either released, tried or other, and there is a corect source, we can update the pageSimply-the-truth (talk) 20:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

• I have a serious problem with how you have covered the reporting that Letts has been charged. I regard it as essential that this not be written in the wikipedia's voice, your preferred approach. Instead, it is essential it be attributed to the RS(s) that report it. NPOV requires the attribution of stuff like this. Wikidocuments that explained howhad been to write in a neutral voice used to offer the example of "Adolph Hitler was evil.", and explained that even an opinion as widely shared as this had to be attributed. We should not write, in the wikipedia's voice, "Adoph Hitler was evil." Instead we should write something like, Hannah Arendt, the philosopher who analyzed the Nazi's writing, who coined the term 'the banality of evil', called Hitler evil. If you understand that even very widely accepted opinions like Hitler being evil are supposed to be attributed then the opinion that Letts has been charged definitely has to be attributed.

1. The BBC got an unpublished "statement", around 2017-11-27, from sources they won't name, about Letts. The BBC never released the "statement" to any other RS.
2. The BBC published selected paraphrases from the unpublished memo, including:
   1. that Letts was being held at a "prison in Qamishli";
   2. that Letts 'has been charged with being a member of "so-called" Islamic State.'
3. For several days other RS also reported that Letts was at the particular prison, that he had been "charged". Some RS were professional, and explicitly said their reporting was based solely on the BBC reporting. Others, like the Telegraph link we discussed above, did not attribute their reporting to the BBC. But, if you compare that Telegraph article to the initial BBC report, it is practically a word for word paraphrase of the BBC article.
4. The last report from the BBC that says Letts was charged was from November 2nd. Other RS are also no longer reporting he was charged.

When you write: "As soon as the subject is either released, tried or other, and there is a corect source, we can update the page." Clarification please. Presumably, if he gets a real trial, a fair trial, or if the Kurds follow the Guantanamo example, and give him hugely unfair show-trial, he will have been charged, first. But he could die in custody, be released, without the press reporting of that event either confirming or denying whether the writers accepted the 2017-10-28 opinion of the BBC that their anonymous unofficial statement actually said he had been charged.

So, if Letts dies, or is sent back to the UK, or to Canada, is it your position the unattributed claim that he had been charged should remain, unless some of those RS explicitly debunked the BBC's opinion that their copy of that anonymous unofficial statement said he had been charged? Geo Swan (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

sources saying Letts has been charged: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/28/oxford-muslim-convert-jihadi-jack-charged-member-isil/. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/jihadi-jack-charged-jack-letts-isis-member-kurdish-officials-arrested-syria-islamic-state-a8024546.html. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41784827Simply-the-truth (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

• Simply-the-truth, you listed three references that reported that Letts had been charged. There were actually a lot more RS that reported that.

As I pointed out already -- several times -- it was the BBC reference you list that first reported he had been charged. They based this reporting on a "statement" unnamed official gave them.

As I pointed out already, some of the other RS explicitly told their readers that their reporting that Letts had been charged relied entirely on the BBC's interpretation of this unpublished unofficial Kurdish document. The Independent explicitly tells readers this:

"In a statement given to the BBC, the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) said Mr Letts had been taken to a prison in Qamishi, Rojava."

As I pointed out already, while The Telegraph does not explicitly credit the BBC, they essentially plagiarized the BBC.

All the reporting that Letts had been charged either plagiarizes the BBC, or explicitly informs readers their reporting relies solely on the "statement" the BBC acquired, or rather on the BBC's interpretation of it, as the BBC did not release the document. Neither did the Kurds release an official statement either confirming or refuting the BBC claim.

You wrote that Letts had been charged with being a member of ISIS. It is the same liberty other RS took with what the BBC reported. Both you and they dropped the "so-called". Both you and they changed "Islamic State" to ISIS. In my opinion you made a mistake taking that liberty. Geo Swan (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

we are going round in circles here. It doesnt matter who reported it first, the fact remains it was reported, you even listed the representative who announced it? You wanted arrested changing, so it was. Now it seems you want charged dropped as well? But it is a very relevant, current and sourced fact, so there is no reason to drop itSimply-the-truth (talk) 11:04, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

please discuss here before making major changes

sourced quotes from the subject were removed, and unsourced claims added? Please allow the article to show the sourced facts, not npov pushed opinions. And please only use sources that are allowed by wikiSimply-the-truth (talk) 20:22, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

For example, there are many sources that say Letts married and became a father while in Syria. His mother disputes these claims. Both sourced points of view are in the article. Then just one is deleted and one left in to create a personal opinion on the facts. Thats not the correct way im afraidSimply-the-truth (talk) 20:27, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

• Could you please provide diffs for the edits that concern you? Please let us know if you need guidance on how to use diffs.

• Could you please follow the established convention of just one indent when responding to someone else's comment? Experienced users rely on these indentations to sort out who is responding to what. Geo Swan (talk) 21:03, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

• Geo Swan, again you start with the arrogance and talking down to people, in this case, me. I will try and indent correctly, but please, don't lecture me about it, and it really ISNT important to this page. Lets try and work together on this, I apologise if I have upset you in any way, I just want the page to be accurate. So please list one item you want to change at a time here and we can discuss if it is relevant, sourced and which section it should go into. Is that a plan we can both work with? Simply-the-truth (talk) 11:06, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Thanks for trying to use indentation properly. The colon ":", the asterisk "*", and the sharp sign "#" are used for indentation. My reply to your initial reply merits two indentations. Your reply to my reply to your reply? That is three indentations. I added an asterisk for you, so your reply now also conforms to the convention. If you are new at this, stick to using the colon. Use one more than the previous person.
  • WRT arrogance... You have just slightly more than 500 edits to the wikimedia foundation projects. I have over 190,000 -- plus considerable experience with non-WMF wikis. So I have approximately 400 times as much experience as you have. Do you think some people would regard your attitude as arrogant, to challenge a good faith contributor trying to offer you good faith advice?
  • When I first started contributing here I used to regularly get sexist put-downs from sexist contributors who assumed I was a woman. Apparently they thought only females could be tactful. I discovered a problem with being super tactful. Tactful comments are simply ignored by overly confident people. There is a window to aim for -- too tactful and the intended reader simply skips over the point you are trying to make -- too tactless and no one can read and understand your point, because you were too rude. The goldilocks comment is one just tactless enough that the intended reader actually pays attention to the point you are trying to make, but not so tactless their emotions cause them to ignore any value in your argument.
  • When I reply to someone I try to bear in mind the window I mentioned above, and use the other parties own comments as a guide to how tactful I should be. You Simply-the-truth, honestly, didn't your initial edit summaries strongly suggested you had not considered any other wording was possible? What that means is the super-tactfulness you seem to be demanding was not appropriate. Sorry.
  • You wrote, immediately above: "So please list one item you want to change".
  • I have explained, in detail, why it is ESSENTIAL to attribute the reporting that Letts had been charged to the BBC. Your have replied to this point. But your replies are deeply disappointing. Recently you wrote: "we are going round in circles here. It doesnt matter who reported it first, the fact remains it was reported, you even listed the representative who announced it?"
  • I listed the representative who announced it? Do you mean Sinam Mohamad? Jeez Louise! Check again! Ms Mohamad is a Kurdish representative. She did make official comments about Letts, around the same time as the BBC reporting he had been charged. Notably, SHE DID NOT CONFIRM THE BBC REPORTS! She said Kurdish law enforcement officials were investigating his activities. This is not the same as saying he had been charged.
  • You have not addressed the very important point that you took the liberty to change the wording from the BBC's reporting, dropping "so-called". Geo Swan (talk) 14:48, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

• I will try and address your points as I go. 1 - Firstly, the fact that you have done more edits than me doesnt mean you are correct on this, or that you are more (or less) inteligent then me. It shows only 1 thing, the fact that you have done more edits. 2 - No idea why you brought this up, I have never even mentioned at hinting at what sex you are? Makes no difference at all in any way, and, you know, I have never mentioned it. 3 - No idea what your point is here, sorry? 4 - I dont agree at all that is this essential, disagree with your points on this because they don't make sense, they are not relevant and it is not essential at all. No other article that I can find anywhere finds it essential to only list the FIRST newsagency that reported the story, but you think this one article is unique in that this essential. This is subtle npov by you im afraid. 4 - Please read the sources and do a basic search. It has been reported many places by many people that he has been charged, again, trying to push npov imho. 5 - err, no I didnt, the page says "so called" so on this you are simply wrong. 6 - STOP being the indent police, stop talking down to me and others and please try to treat others with respectSimply-the-truth (talk) 19:02, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Charged with being a member of isis

It doesn't matter who reported it first, it doesn't matter if other reports sometimes quote other sources, they all do that on every news story. The fact is there are more than enough sources that say this happened so it must be in the article:

1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/28/oxford-muslim-convert-jihadi-jack-charged-member-isil/ - says charged with being a member of isis
2. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/jihadi-jack-charged-jack-letts-isis-member-kurdish-officials-arrested-syria-islamic-state-a8024546.html - says charged with being a member of isis
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41784827 - says charged with being a member of isis
4. http://metro.co.uk/2017/10/28/oxfords-jihadi-jack-is-charged-with-being-an-is-member-7034300/ - says charged with being a member of isis
5. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/jihadi-jack-muslim-convert-oxford-11428036 - says charged with being a member of isis
6. http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15625670._Jihadi_Jack__charged_with_being_a_member_of_Isis_by_Kurdish_officials/ - says charged with being a member of isis
7. http://www.theoxfordpaper.co.uk/2017/11/01/man-charged-member-syria/ - says charged with being a member of isis — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simply-the-truth (talk • contribs) 19:11, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
   • I took the liberty of numbering Simply-the-truth's links, above, so I can refer to them by number. Geo Swan (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
   • STT has voiced the concern that I am not reading the sources. I have already voiced my concern that STT is overlooking that the other sources that reported Letts has been charged either attribute the news that Letts had been charged to the unofficial and unpublished statement the BBC acquired, or they simply plagiarized the BBC article, without stating the source of their information. This is what The Telegraph link you keep repeating has done. I am really surprised you keep offering this link, even though I have pointed out they were plagiarizing the BBC several times.
   1. I already addressed the first three links, above. The Telegraph shamelessly plagiarizes the BBC.
   2. The Independent explicitly tell readers their reporting relies on the BBC report. So their reporting adds no more reliability to the assertion.
   3. The original BBC report.
   4. Metro UK doesn't explicitly name the BBC -- writing "The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) said in a statement that Letts was taken to a prison in Qamishli, in northern Syria." Okay, the BBC referred to their unpublished unofficial statement, and Sinam Mohamad made a statement, which we know did not say Letts had been charged. So they too are relying on the BBC.
   5. The first sentence of the Daily Record's report says he had been charged, without explicitly asserting a source for that information. But the end of the article squotes a statement from Kurdish authorities, a statement that says he is a POW, which is not consistent with being charged. So, they are quoting Sinam Mohamad, not the BBC's unpublished statement.
   6. The Oxford Mail says: "Officials from the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) ... issued a statement to the BBC..." So the source of their reporting is clearly the BBC, so it is no more reliable than the BBC.
   7. The Oxford Paper says something similar -- "Officials from the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) ... issued a statement to the BBC over the weekend..."
   • I am sorry, but I remain very concerned that you have yet to have acquired a firm understanding of some key elements of wikipedia policy. Our readers deserve our best attempts to offer them articles written using a neutral voice. When our readers read an assertion like "Jack Letts" has been charged they deserve to be able to expect that the article makes clear who is responsible for that assertion.

     We don't simply repeat an opinion from an RS as if it were "the truth". That is right from WP:Verify.

     Yes, that he had been "charged" IS AN OPINION. It is clearly an opinion, some BBC reporters adopted after they acquired a still unpublished "statement", an unofficial one. We don't really know what the BBC reporters meant by the term "statement". It could be something simple like the Con-Air equivalent of a boarding pass. There is a very good chance it was written in Arabic. News-flash -- translation in the war on terror has been pitiful. If this statement was as mundane as a Con-Air boarding pass, it might have filled some field which is supposed to contain the reason why a prisoner is being held, and that field might have said something as simple as, "accused of being a member of Daesh", or "believed to have travelled to Syria to volunteer for Daesh". The reliability of the BBC's interpretation of the unpublished unofficial statement relies on several factors, including:

     1. The quality of the "statement". Obviously a boarding pass would be way less reliable than an abandoned draft of press release that officials decided they should not release, after all.
     2. The quality of the BBC's translators. They could be typically lousy translators.
     3. Finally, it also relies on the experience and judgement of the BBC's reporters. Emma Vardy, the reporter credited with writing the original BBC article may not have enough experience to understand that being considered a POW is inconsistent with criminal charges.
   • Do you realize you have repeatedly voiced the concern that I am pushing a biased point of view? Do you realize that you seem to be implying I am knowingly pushing a biased point of view?

     I am not trying to be offensive, but I see no apparent realization, on your part, that you owe it to the rest of us to think carefully about whether you are unknowingly lapsing from neutrality, yourself.

     Sorry, you seem wedded to baldly reporting Letts has been charged, without honoring our obligation to our readers to help them understand who is actually the source of the information, and that continues to really concern me. This is not a "fact", it is an interpretation, a not particularly reliable one, since it relies on an unpublished document of some kind, one whose authorship is unknown. Geo Swan (talk) 21:45, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you say keep repeating that this is BBC's sole interpretation of a document only they have access to. What makes you believe that to be the case? Nowhere in the other reports (that I can see) do they qualify the sourcing - for example the Telegraph just says: "according to a statement by DFNS", while the Independent says "A 21-year-old man has been charged with being a member of Isis, officials from the Kurdish region of Syria have said." What makes you believe all those newspapers are just repeating the BBC (unattributed), doing no reporting of their own? Do you have any reason to question the plain language of multiple sources? We obviously cannot say that he is a member of ISIS, or perhaps even that he is charged with being a member of ISIS, but it is well sourced that DFNS claim to have charged him with being a member of ISIS. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 23:04, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

• Red Rock Canyon, you write: "I'm not sure why you say keep repeating that this is BBC's sole interpretation of a document only they have access to..."

Because (1) the BBC was the first to report he had been charged; (2) the BBC explicitly said their report was based on a "statement" they acquired from Kurdish officials who chose to remain anonymous -- in other words an unofficial statement from an anonymous source; (3) the subsequent brief flurry of reports that Letts had been charged either explicitly acknowledged they were based soley on the BBC's report, or did not give any source for the info; (4) if the BBC had published their statement, other RS would have quoted it by now. They haven't done so, and no RS has described Letts as being charged since November 3rd.

You ask "...for example the Telegraph just says: 'according to a statement by DFNS'" Simply-the-truth kept referring to The Telegraph report, even though I published a key paragraph of their reporting, next to the corresponding paragraph from the initial BBC report. The Telegraph performed a word for word cut and paste of this paragraph. The entire article is blatant plagiarism.

You ask "What makes you believe all those newspapers are just repeating the BBC (unattributed), doing no reporting of their own?" You named two sources to which you thought I had not paid attention. I already address The Telegraph article again. How closely did you look at the other article you name, from The Independent? Four paragraphs down from the passage you quoted the article says: "In a statement given to the BBC, the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) said Mr Letts had been taken to a prison in Qamishi, Rojava." The article actually links to the BBC article.

• So, no, the claim Letts has been charged is not "well sourced". If our article is going to say he was charged, this absolutely cannot be said in the wikipedia's own voice. It absolutely has to be attributed to the BBC, or to their interpretation of their unofficial copy of an unpublished document.

  In my opinion, if this claim is to appear in our wikipedia article, not only must it be clear the assertion is attributed to the analysis of the BBC, but it does not belong in the article's lead paragraphs. Geo Swan (talk) 18:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Additionally, you mention WP:VERIFY - that says this "In Wikipedia, verifiability means that other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." We aren't supposed to hold sources to the same standard - if a source is reliable, then that's as far as the guideline goes, and BBC is definitely a reliable source for this subject (as are the Independent and Telegraph). And again, you said that the BBC report is opinion - where are you getting that from? The article is listed as news. Your own personal analysis of their reporting is not important for this article. Perhaps there are additional constraints related to WP:BLP, but your arguments about verifiability and reliable sourcing seem to contradict basic policy. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 00:33, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

• You quote a passage from WP:VERIFY, and then assert "We aren't supposed to hold sources to the same standard - if a source is reliable, then that's as far as the guideline goes, and BBC is definitely a reliable source for this subject."

First, for the record, VERIFY is an official policy, one of the wikipedia's initial core policies, as are WP:No original research, and WP:Neutral point of view. WP:Reliable sources, on the other hand, is merely a guideline. In the heirarchy of wikidocuments, policies are more significant than guidelines, which, theoretically, are more significant than essays. In practice some essays, possibly WP:Arguments to avoid, are so widely accepted, some experienced contributors have suggested they have the de facto authority of policy.

Your quote from VERIFY is correct, so far as it goes. We routinely use sources that don't aim to achieve the neutrality we aim for -- which is why it is so important that we try to comply with the NPOV policy and its associated wikidocuments.

Check again, I never asserted the claim Letts had been charged couldn't be covered, only that if we cover it we do so consistent with policy. This means we don't assert he was charged in the wikipedia's own voice, we attribute it. And, since the BBC may have backed away from the claim, it should be covered consistent with WP:UNDUE. The claim, after all, is based on a unpublished unofficial document, of unknown origin. It may be a forgery. No one can say, since the BBC hasn't released it.

What did the BBC mean by "statement"? While it could refer to a discarded draft of a press-release, as I wrote earlier, for all we know this "statement" was a document like a boarding pass, given for the guards who had Letts in their custody, during a transfer from one prison to another, telling them who he was, and how to treat him. Geo Swan (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

We have sources that state he was arrested, your claims that the BBC's source is unreliable is ridiclious. We have published souces backing this claim up, we don't need the journalists source. Your claims almost make me feel you are connected, if you happen to know this individual somehow you must disclose it. I don't see any other reason for your illogical lobbying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.71.19.172 (talk) 03:21, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

We include a statement in the article. The article sources several reliable sources that all support that statement. This satisfies verifiability. There is no need to dig into the reliable sources and question their methods, as you are doing. The statement "The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria claims to have charged Jack Letts as a member of the Islamic State" is verifiable because it is sourced to reliable sources - readers can click on the links and see the very articles that make this claim, thus verifying for themselves that we aren't just making it up. Saying "According to the BBC, The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria claims to have charged Jack Letts as a member of the Islamic State" is unnecessary use of in-text attribution.

That being said, I've removed the reference to him being charged in the lead. As I've argued above, I don't believe WP:VERIFY is relevant here. However WP:BLP definitely is. I'm not sure exactly what information should be contained in the lead, and how. As it currently exists, the lead gives essentially no information whatsoever about Jack Letts or why he's notable. I've started a thread lower down to discuss that. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 09:44, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Adding Northern Syrian Prison to Lead

I think it might be worth adding to the lead that he is currently in a Kurdish prison under the de facto government of Northern Syria. Quite a few sources confirm this, or at least confirm that he was in such a prison as of 6 months ago, and that the government claims to still hold him. I don't think it violates BLP, since a number of sources agree on where he is, and we wouldn't be accusing him of any crimes he may not have committed, just stating the fact of where he is. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 11:01, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

• Good idea.

I think it would be a good idea to have this replace the basically unsubstantiated reporting that Letts has been charged. Reporting of Letts being charged, given its unsupported nature, belongs lower in the article, in a subsection. The reporting that he has been charged absolutely must be credited to the BBC, and its interpretation of its copy of an unpublished unofficial document. Geo Swan (talk) 21:50, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Would this be an improvement to the lead: "Jack Letts – nicknamed "Jihadi Jack" by the press[who?] – is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Canada who is held in prison by the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), who suspect him of being a member of the Islamic State.[4]"? Red Rock Canyon (talk) 23:00, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Torture and Other Claims

Many of the recent changes by Veritasgreen were not supported by the sources included. For example, the statement "Letts was imprisoned by ISIS on three occasions, and he lived in hiding with others who stood against Isis inside Raqqa" is sourced to [1], which only has this to say "'I hate them more than the Americans hate them,' Letts told the BBC. 'I realised they were not upon the truth so they put me in prison three times and threatened to kill me.'" The article makes clear that Letts said he was imprisoned by ISIS, they don't report it as a fact. His own statements should be included, but we have to acknowledge that these are simply things he claimed, unless a secondary source confirms them. Additionally, the part in the lead about him being tortured was sourced to the Daily Mail, which generally cannot be used as a reliable secondary source, according to WP:DAILYMAIL. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 06:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Please come talk about these changes before adding them. About the torture, [2] also talks about whether he was tortured. However, it repeats over and over again that this is something his parents "claim". They do not present it as an uncontested fact, and neither can we. They even present an alternate claim - his captors say he is well taken care of, fed regularly, and in weekly contact with his family. The source does not say one of these is true and the other is false, so neither can we. I also don't know if it belongs in the lead. Honestly, I don't know what should go in the lead of this article, the current one is clearly not very good, but I don't think your changes make it better. I think the lead should give some idea of who this person is and why he is notable. However, it seems that most of the reason he's well-known is because of all the accusations that he's a member of the Islamic State - unproven allegations that could violate BLP. However, without those unproven allegations, there's no point for this article to exist. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 23:48, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Letts's father was born in Canada, and Letts is a joint citizen of the UK and Canada

The last time I worked on this article it clearly said Letts is a joint citizen of the UK and Canada. In the 11 months since then this well referenced fact has been removed, without any explanation here on the talk page.

Last night the CBC reported on a letter his father sent to every Canadian Member of Parliament, about his joint citizenship.

A commentator being interviewed by the CBC also said that Canada considers the Kurdish group holding Letts to be a terrorist group.

If no one can explain why his joint citizenship doesn't belong in the article I will restore it. Geo Swan (talk) 16:14, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Questionable...

Someone paraphrased a petition, writing:

Letts initially told the BBC: 'I don't want anyone to help me", but later requested help to return to the UK, and said he is happy to be arrested and put on trial for any crime the police claim he has committed.'

This is questionable.

1. Letts wasn't "arrested". The Kurdish group that apprehended him are non-state actors. The use of the term "arrest" is not appropriate for this kind of apprehension, as it should really only be used in a law enforcement. Non-state actors have no body of laws. So they can't try him.

   Maybe he means trial in the UK, or Canada.

2. Second, the petition they are paraphrasing? They provided no URL to its text. Geo Swan (talk) 16:26, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Has Letts recently asserted he was an ISIS member?

Has Letts recently asserted he was an ISIS member? It was pretty clear, a year ago, that he had not made that assertion. If he clearly has done so, of course the article should say so.

But let's all discuss this controversial change, and discuss wording that satisfies all of us. Let's not start edit wars, were we revert one another. No agreement comes from that. An IP made a controversial edit, explained only in their edit summary. And I reverted them.

Discussions like that belong on the talk page, not our edit summaries. Geo Swan (talk) 16:26, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

The dam in the background of the one finger salute photo of Jack is Tabqa in Syria, not Mosul in Iraq.

The wiki says it's Mosul Dam which was under the control of ISIS at the time. This is wrong on both counts, it's not Mosul Dam, & Mosul Dam was not under the control of ISIS in 2015 when the photo was shared.

It is actually Tabqa Dam on the outskirts of Raqqa, which WAS under ISIS control at the time. My source for this is comparing pictures of both dams with the photo of Jack, & using Google Maps. I have no idea how to reference that, & i'm a complete novice at editing & not very confident of editing the page of a guy who is the subject of an ongoing investigation! If someone who knows what they're doing could update the page that would be great.

Cheers, Tom

--86.13.96.106 (talk) 23:49, 27 January 2020 (UTC)