What needs to be known about Bisharat’s response to my open letter

The way in which Bisharat has responded to my open letter is alarming, disrespectful, and unprofessional. The climbing community deserves better than this from the editor-at-large of one of our sport’s leading magazines. I urge everyone to demand a spirit of respect and professionalism from the people who run this industry — it is a very basic value that is owed to all of us. I believe Bisharat and Rock and Ice magazine should be held accountable for the following:

Not only did Bisharat respond publicly with comments that were incredibly degrading and disrespectful to myself and many others who expressed disagreement with him, but he also formed a blatant lie in an attempt to discredit me and excuse his outrageous reaction.

Bisharat publicly claimed in more than one instance that I “drastically” changed my letter — that the letter he read contained “personal attacks” that I later edited out. This is all completely untrue. The letter that Andrew received is the same letter that has been and still currently is open to the public, and zero edits were made.

This is an unfortunate accusation for him to make, given the ease in which his statements are proven to be completely false. Thanks to the internet and simple technology, you will find extensive documentation of his lie below.

Bisharat’s initial accusations of me changing and editing the letter:

Screen shots of my Facebook message with Bisharat containing the letter I sent him. It is identical to the one that I posted:

Bisharat’s response to a text I sent him that confronted him about his lie:

Bisharat further attempting to defend and lessen his lie:

Bisharat has personally apologized to me for his accusations via text message. While I wholly appreciate this, I do think that Bisharat and Rock and Ice should be held fiercely accountable for his actions. Furthermore, as you can see from the documentation I provided of Bisharat’s false accusations, Bisharat has only half-way admitted to this lie (he claims that he simply did not read my letter closely enough initially).

I am choosing to leave Bisharat’s rude comments out of this post because I feel that they in no way add to this conversation. However, I have documentation of these posts and they are available for anyone to see upon request. Please contact me at gleeabel@gmail.com for further information.

I do think it is important to note that the only thing that Bisharat has mentioned on his own personal page about the issue is a link to a video that makes fun of feminists:

Here are the facts of this issue: Rock and Ice magazine employs an editor at large who, when respectfully disagreed with, publicly lies in an attempt to discredit the person who challenges him. He also makes disrespectful comments quite often when faced with these issues. This is not acceptable behavior and must be addressed.

While I do believe that Bisharat’s inital article about FFAs was not based in disrespect, his reaction to my letter is shameful. To make rude remarks to anyone that disagreed with him, and then blatantly lie as a way to discredit me and save face, is on a level of disrespect that is honestly hard for me to even comprehend. I cannot stand for this. I can only take so much. But this is not just about me — this is a disappointment to the climbing community. One of the most prominent voices in climbing media attempted to manipulate this community by forming a lie. I truly hope that this causes Rock and Ice and other companies to demand that their employees act with nothing but respect for this community, and being held accountable for their actions is an important part of that. I also hope this will result in a sincere apology from Bisharat and Rock and Ice to the entire climbing community that does not attempt to further manipulate the situation by lessening his actions in any way.

Thank you for reading,

Georgie