Shielding Truth From Power

Two reports out of London question how accurately the British Broadcasting Corporation represents the country's Muslim population.

First, Sikh and Hindu leaders in Britain complain that their communities are ignored as the network panders to Islam. A study by the network's Religion and Ethics department found the BBC produced 41 programs in Islam since 2001, compared to five on Hinduism and one focusing on Sikhism.

More disturbing is this report from Nick Cohen of London's Standpoint Magazine, that the BBC killed "The London Bombers," described as a heavily researched docu-drama on the 7/7 bombings that killed 52 people in 2005.

A team of reporters, including one who is Muslim, researched the program. It found that the London bombers were motivated more by a desire to promote a form of radical Islam than by any perceived slight or government policy at home and abroad. The reporting team won the cooperation and endorsement of the bombers' families. But, after their reporting was done, BBC officials pulled the plug on the program.

Cohen reports:

"The official reason is that the drama didn't make the grade. The script is circulating in Samizdat form, which is how it reached Standpoint, and every writer and director who has read it disagrees. The journalists, however, say that BBC managers told them they were stopping because it was ‘Islamophobic'.

Eh? The defining characteristic of Islamophobic prejudice is the belief that all Muslims are potential terrorists, and yet here, apparently, is the BBC seconding that motion by arguing that a dramatic examination of terrorism would be offensive to all Muslims."

Here's the link again. After seeing The Jewel of Medina lose its original publisher, it is another example in a disturbing trend of self-imposed censorship.

Related Topics: IPT News

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