Terrorism

Terrorism was the act of committing destructive acts with the purpose of spreading fear for political or religious reasons. (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn) Cyberterrorism was a form of terrorism. (TV: Reset)

On 21st century Earth, people were accused of terrorism for the colour of their skin, (TV: Rosa) or for looking like foreigners. (AUDIO: Visiting Hours)

On Earth

The World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists on 11 September 2001, an event that came to be known as 9/11. (AUDIO: The Longest Night, PROSE: Touched by an Angel)

The following year, several terrorist groups emerged in a period of political tension in 2002 brought about by the New Britannia Party. They included the United Front, Black Lightning and White Wolves. (AUDIO: The Fearmonger)

MI5 suspected that I2 was a front for the terrorist organisation Little Brothers. (PROSE: System Shock)

In the 21st century, a terrorist group known as Al-Qa'ida attempted to get nuclear weapons. (PROSE: The Nuclear Option)

The United Kingdom had a National Counter Terrorism Security Office. (AUDIO: Outbreak) Wales had an Extremism and Counter-Terrorism Unit. (AUDIO: A Mother's Son)

Xander Vaughn formed Red Doors, (AUDIO: Cardiff Unknown - October 2018) a terrorist group that targeted the Sorvix and ethnic minorities in Cardiff. (AUDIO: Changes Everything) They bombed Cardiff Airport. (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn)

As a cover for alien invasion

Terrorism was used, both by governments and civilians, to explain away alien invasions which occurred on Earth in the late 20th century and early 21st century.

Black Thursday was the cover story issued by the British government to hide the true nature of the Nestene's attempted invasion of Earth in the 1970s. It was used to explain that the Auton shop window dummies coming to life and the resulting deaths that followed this incident were because of terrorists, which many citizens theorised were of the Irish Republican Army. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy, TV: Spearhead from Space) A later Nestene invasion (TV: Rose, etc.) which occurred on 5 March 2005 would be covered up in the same way; (AUDIO: One Rule) indeed, the "terrorist threat" was one of the issues that the World Media diverted to instead of addressing the attack by 2 April 2005. (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre)

As Gwen Cooper told Jack Harkness, Rhys Williams believed that occurrences such as the spaceship over London on Christmas Day and the Battle of Canary Wharf were the result of "sort of terrorism.", suggesting that they had put psychotropic drugs in the water supplies, resulting in mass hallucinations. Jack replied "Yeah, well your boyfriend's stupid." (TV: Everything Changes)

When a fracturing of the Cardiff Space-Time Rift resulted in time slips occurring worldwide, initial news reports suggested terrorist involvement. When Rhys asked Gwen if she thought terrorists were responsible, Gwen replied "terrorists bomb things, this is different." (TV: End of Days)

In 1997, the Brigadier confided to the Eighth Doctor that he had believed that Nelson Mandela was a communist terrorist. (PROSE: The Dying Days)

Elsewhere in the universe

Angvian terrorists tried to disrupt a peace conference on Achilles 4 between the Angvians and Gholos. However, the real peace conference was happening on Dark Space 8. (AUDIO: Bang-Bang-a-Boom!)

V'rell was a Monan delegate to a major temporal summit on Gallifrey. Secretly he was a terrorist allied to the Free Time movement. (AUDIO: Square One)

A Tarenist cell known as the Church of Taren Capel claimed responsibility for the terrorist attacks that occurred during a three month period in Kaldor City. (AUDIO: Hidden Persuaders)

The Thirteenth Doctor was described as being a terrorist, among other things, by the Freedom Thoughcast Network, as part of their smear campaign against her. (COMIC: Mistress of Chaos)

Other references

"Terrorist" was also used as a derogatory term. Yasmin Khan had been referred to as a terrorist on at least two occasions due to her muslim faith. (TV: Rosa, PROSE: The Good Doctor)

Behind the scenes

Very few acts of real-world terrorism have had an indirect impact on Doctor Who media.

The initial broadcast of The Pyramid at the End of the World had a line of dialogue referring to terrorism removed in response to the Manchester Arena Bombing, which occurred five days prior.

The 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, an attack at a gay nightclub in which the majority of the victims were members of the LGBTQ+ community, prompted Class creator and writer Patrick Ness to reveal earlier than planned that the show would have an openly-gay lead, with Ness citing the early reveal being because it felt less important to keep it a secret in light of the attack.