The Freedom Flotilla which is a mere humanitarian mission has been
covered by a wide range of western media outlets in the last few days.
The BBC started to speak about the Boats of the flotilla only in the
last 2 days.
In most of its coverage BBC depended on Israeli sources whilst the
Palestinian side has been ignored. PRC suggests that such coverage
harm the image of BBC and could classify it as an alternative for some
Israeli media outlets.
PRC and part of its day-to-day monitoring for BBC observed the
following:
On one of its today’s article BBC gave a space for the Israeli side
while it has ignored the Palestinian side. The official account of
Israel though, Danny Ayalon, Israeli deputy foreign minister was
presented, which stated that organizers’ intent was violent. The
article mentioned that ‘Guns and knives’ were used by the civilian
passengers.
The great exposure of Israeli account continued on the BBC breakfast
(BBC TV)and its running news casts. Spokespersons and Israeli
officials were given a chance to justify the Israeli attack. BBC
reporters in Israel also contribute to this dilemma as they only speak
out what they get from the official Israeli sources.
PRC call on BBC to stand neutral and give up its routine policies of
quickly admitting and giving a space for the Israeli narrative.
The centre puts the facts ahead to the BBC that Israel announced its
intent to attack these boats a few days ago. This gives us a direct
and clear-cut massage that Israel will be inventing propaganda and
lies to cover up its crime today.
BBC should give more focus on the other side of the story which is
the massive scale of the victims, the legality of this attack which
happened in the international waters. BBC should investigate the last
Israeli positions over the past week and compare it with what happened
today. People in the UK and elsewhere who watch the BBC aspire to find
non bias accounts and true stories. But, sadly what’s being going on
BBC is one sided and reach the degree of flagrant bias.
With so many different sources of information from governments to
NGOs, the BBC finds it morally and journalistically appropriate to
provide justifications of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) for its
unprovoked crime. The BBC is alone in quoting the IDF that the
Flotilla had violent intentions and humanitarian personnel on board
were carrying knives, guns and fired shots.
The BBC thinks it’s an impartial organisations, in fact it has
shown that it’s a mouth piece for the IDFs crimes.
The BBC should recognise that an impartial position at this early
stage would have been to simply state the facts as accepted by the
international community and not provide justifications for the
killings of 19 innocent civilians.
BBC spokesperson, told PRC that, ‘We are unable to respond as we have
not been given the courtesy of detailed evidence of any accusation.’
However, PRC told the spokesperson of the above mentioned coverage
and the time of the news casts.
PRC call on activists, journalists to protest against the BBC
performance.
File a complaint against BBC: 03700100222
Or by web feedback:
http://nlp.prc.org.uk/lists/lt.php?id=bE1VAAFTVgBUSgADBBhTAAEHAA%3D%3D