worthy the cause", which had previously prevented staff from expressing support for Black Lives Matter and LGBT rights. Allegations of bias South Asia The journalist Christopher Booker has criticised the BBC for its coverage of India-related matters. He concludes that the BBC's efforts to reinforce stereotypes of South Asians has been directly responsible for damaging the image of India and encouraging racist incidents against Indians, such as the Leipzig University internship controversy. In 2009, presenter Adil Ray had espoused that Sikhs should not always carry their kirpan, a ceremonial dagger and key item of their faith. The BBC rejected the charge but deleted the show from its website. Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Alasdair Pinkerton analysed the coverage of India by the BBC from India's 1947 independence from British rule to 2008. Pinkerton observed a tumultuous history involving allegations of anti-India bias in the BBC's reportage, particularly during the Cold War, and concluded that the BBC's coverage of South Asian geopolitics and economics showed a pervasive and hostile anti-India bias because of the BBC's alleged imperialist and neocolonialist stance. In 2008, the BBC was criticised for referring to the men who carried out the November 2008 Mumbai attacks as "gunmen", rather than "terrorists," used to describe the attacks in UK. In protest against the use of the word "gunmen" by the BBC, journalist M.J. Akbar refused to take part in an interview after the Mumbai attacks and criticised the BBC's reportage of the incident. In 2011, the Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (COAP) accused BBC World News of "anti-Pakistan propaganda" and banned it, after it aired a documentary which accused Pakistan of failing to meet its commitments in the war on terror. BBC condemned the ban as an attack on its editorial independence and many Pakistanis criticized the ban as a violation of freedom of speech; while COAP responded that it was not legally obliged to allow foreign channels. Later, Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani called for more freedom of speech in Pakistan and that he wanted BBC to operate in Pakistan. It alleged the Indian Army to have had stormed a sacred Muslim shrine, the tomb of Sheikh Noor-u-din Noorani in Charari Sharief and retracted the claim only after strong criticism. A 2016 report from the BBC accused India of funding Pakistan's Muttahida Qaumi Movement and providing weapons and