On 5/20/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
If it was reliably established that he was Jewish, there would be no problem. Since it isn't reliably established, reporting that he was Jewish, or that he might be Jewish, constitutes anti-Semitism.
The only reference I've found to Harold Shipman being Jewish is a BBC news site reporting a comment by [[Abu Hamza al-Masri]], an Islamist cleric in the UK, who was convicted in February of racial hatred and incitement to murder. Abu Hamza told the court that the British Foreign Office and media are controlled by Jews, and part of his evidence was that, referring to Harold Shipman, "If a doctor kills 250 of his patients there is not a single word about his religion." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4644030.stm
This is the attitude that User:Saladin1970 (posting here as Abu Hamza) brings to Wikipedia. We see it a lot. A few weeks ago, another user, User:Jamaissur, created a number of articles about British Jews who were caught up in a financial scandal. There were other people caught up in it too, but he didn't create articles about them, only the Jewish ones, and some of the articles ended up consisting only of the allegations with practically no other information. When he couldn't find a source saying they were Jews, he'd add things like "is one of the 'British friends' of the "Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress," which made the same point. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barry_Townsley&oldid=44187414 Or that the person was married to someone whose father was Jewish. He even created an article about the charity [[Jewish care]] because one of the men caught up in the scandal was a major fundraiser, and for a while that's all the page said: British charity, looks after Jewish people, controversial Lord X was a major fundraiser. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewish_Care&oldid=44486804
Even if Harold Shipman was Jewish and there's a good source for it, there's no reason it should be in the intro. His ethnicity/religion wasn't in any way relevant to his notabilty.
Sarah