General BBC-related comment thread!

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.

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189 Responses to General BBC-related comment thread!

  1. whitewineliberal says:

    Not directly relevant to the core concerns of my new friends on B-BBC, but some might find this article on media bias interesting.

    http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12510893

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  2. Bob says:

    Has this story been receiving heavy coverage on the Brown Broadcasting Company? You know, the broadcaster that continues to tell us Brown straddles the narrow world like a colossus, that the “downturn” is all due to global factors?
    “Recession will hit UK hardest says EC”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/03/recession-economicgrowth
    No, didn’t think so

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  3. F1 OBO says:

    Congrats to Lewis Hamilton… but unfortunately i keep forgetting what his racial origins are.

    Bummer!

    Fortunately though i have found a solution to my problem.
    By tuning into News24 bulletins every half hour, i can have it pointed-out to me constantly, that he’s black.

    What a relief!
    I dont like to forget, coz its so obviously important for some reason

    ———.

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  4. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Greg Palast and Newsnight lied to all of you in the report about US voter fraud. They contend that there is no evidence that fraudulent voter registrations become fraudulent votes. They refuse to discuss why ACORN and other groups would go through all the trouble of creating hundreds of thousands of fake voters, but they remain convinced that none of the fake voters actually vote.

    They know they’re lying, and that it’s almost impossible to prove, so Palast makes their actual position as untouchable as possible by saying that “there’s no evidence” that all these fraudulent voter registrations “actually affected the outcome of an election.”

    According to this, it very nearly did:

    Falsified registrations become votes

    Last month, the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel reported that some 5,000 felons who do not have the right to vote have apparently voted in recent elections in Florida. Their illegal registrations turned into actual votes. The Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post had similar findings in May 2001 on the presidential election held the year previously. Reporters have found that that the number of illegal felon registrations that were cast that year was greater than the number of valid voters dropped from the voter rolls and thus blocked from voting. The Florida presidential vote — and the presidency — was decided in 2000 by only 537 votes.

    The groups that do the felon trick are, without exception, Democrat supporters, and register all their fakes as Dems. So Al Gore’s crew probably “knew” they should have had more votes, so demanded specialized recounts. After the two recounts, it became clear that even with the Democrat voter fraud, Bush squeaked by.

    That’s why new Democrat registrations have outnumbered Republican ones by more than two to one this year. The fact that so many of those have turned out to be fake doesn’t seem to make it to the front pages, of course. If McCain wins, the cry will be that all those Obamessiah votes were suppressed by nasty Republicans trying to disenfranchise blacks and poor people. That’s why they do it, and those fake voters become votes.

    Newsnight will never admit this. The BBC News flagship has tarnished its reputation to support a candidate in a foreign election, for purely partisan reasons.

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  5. Bob says:

    Just dredged this up off the BBC website:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7705835.stm
    Strange – not a SINGLE reference to the EC saying the RECESSION (not downturn) will hit UK under Bungler Brown hardest of all! Now why would they censor that I wonder?

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  6. George R says:

    Typicallly, the BBC presents only the Muslim’s case here.
    From the BBC’s headline, not much is explained; this is because the BBC chooses to omit as a first word in the headline, the word ‘MUSLIM:

    “Caterer sues police over sausages”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7704835.stm

    The BBC makes no criticism of this Muslim caterer’s case, such as this at ‘Dhimmiwatch’:

    “Islam also forbids Muslims from voluntarily living and intermingling with infidels: why does this “pious” Muslim man choose to live in infidel Britain, as opposed to any Muslim country where he wouldn’t need to worry about pork products?”

    Note ‘Dhimmiwatch’s accurate title to piece, unlike that of BBC:

    ‘Dhimmiwatch’ title:

    “UK: Muslim caterer sues police over sausages”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/023329.php

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  7. Umbongo says:

    wwl

    Your quoted article is a great argument in favour of the break-up of the BBC. The Economist reports a paper saying that people given a spectrum of choice select the news broadcaster which most reflects their views. I would also reckon – given a spectrum of choice – people here and in the US also tend to buy the daily newspaper which most reflects their views.

    The problem of bias is brought into sharp focus in the first paragraph where Obama opines that without Fox News (ie the one major broadcaster not in thrall to the One) he’d be 3 more points ahead in the polls. In other words, the existence of a source of news providing alternative items – or an alternative take on the same items – probably creates (or tends to create) a larger pool of accurate information available to the electorate.

    Unfortunately, in TV/radio news broadcasting in the UK, the dominant broadcaster in an almost non-existent “spectrum of choice” is the BBC. But for the BBC and its statutory but unobserved duty to be impartial, I suspect that Labour’s poll ratings would tend to lag a whole lot more than 3 percent behind the published figures at any given time.

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  8. Cassandra says:

    The BBC website is carrying an advert for ‘Suzlon’ the makers and floggers of the useless,ugly and expensive windmills that dont actually work!
    Hmmm, no conflict of interest there then? Would they be so keen on carrying an advert for nuclear or coal power station makers?
    The BBC doesnt do adverts does it? They sneer at commercial broadcasters who have to rely on money grubbing capitalists for revenue.

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  9. TPO says:

    Bob | 03.11.08 – 5:39 pm |

    Quite. Here it is, being properly reported.

    Britain to be worst hit by the impending European recession
    Britain will be hit by the impending global recession more than any other leading European country, the Commission itself has warned.

    Unemployment will increase by 25 per cent next year to hit 2.25 million, the budget deficit will spiral, and the economy will contract by a full 1 per cent, according to the European Commission.
    According to European Union economic forecasts, Gordon Brown, once praised as a “prudent” role model for other high-spending European governments, will be presiding, by 2010, over one of Europe’s highest rates of public debt at the same as Britain’s economy shrinks.
    Only Estonia and Latvia are expected to suffer deeper recessions in 2009, with France and Germany avoiding recession altogether.
    The forecasts from EC economists will be embarrassing for Prime Minister, especially their prediction that British unemployment will jump to 7.1 per cent of the population in 2009, up 25 per cent on the forecast of 5.7 per cent in 2008.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3372769/Britain-to-be-worst-hit-by-the-impending-European-recession.html

    BBC in total denial again, even though one of their paymasters is saying it.
    Call-me-Dave needs to ponder such blatant BBC bias by omission. Can you imagine the headlines if it was a Tory government in power.

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  10. pounce says:

    The bBC, reporting the news and half the story.

    Anybody here read the article about the murder case for poor little Vicky Hamilton. You’d think from reading it that Peter Tobin may, just may be an innocent man.

    Vicky murder trial alibi defence
    The trial of the man accused of murdering Falkirk schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton seventeen years ago has begun in Dundee.

    Handyman Peter Tobin, 62, is charged with abducting, sexually assaulting and killing the 15-year-old in 1991.

    The teenager’s remains were found buried in the garden of a house in Margate, Kent, in November last year.

    Mr Tobin’s defence team have tabled a special defence of alibi stating he was in Portsmouth when Vicky disappeared.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7705767.stm

    Shame the bBC leaves out just where Peter has been living for the past year,
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6920143.stm

    Just who happened to live in the house Vickys body was found in.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7109032.stm
    How Peter has a nasty habit of killing little girls and leaving their bodies under the floorboards.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7103836.stm

    Yet for some strange reason the bBC doesn’t mention any of the above when reporting on the sex fiend Tobin.

    Maybe the bBC has a program in the wings where they prove tobins innocence and don’t want to clash with that angle.

    The bBC, reporting the news and half the story.

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  11. Gerald Brown says:

    I note that the Have Your Say on “Has social mobility improved under Labour” seems to have got stuck. With the vast majority of the about 25% published so far denigrating GB and Co. it seems as though the BBC got it wrong yet again by agreeing to run with this highly debateable research when requested by control.

    Have I missed the BBC coverage on Andrew Burnham, the Work and Pensions Minister leaving documents on the train? The Civil Service Unions are pressing for similar punishment to what civil servants get in similar circumstances. Is this another BBC “nothing to see here, move along” story.

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  12. NotaSheep says:

    The BBC Radio 4 news at 7pm was interesting, this is a quick 2 minute bulletin and about a minute was devoted to the US Presidential election. A quick note that both Obama and McCain were campaigning hard although Obama was still ahead in the polls. Oddly (or not) the BBC only managed to play an excerpt from one of the candidates speeches, can you guess which one? Not too hard was it…

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  13. Kill the Beeb says:

    Blacks only radio station funded by the licence payer.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/08/24/ukblack_feature.shtml

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  14. Hugh Oxford says:

    Does anyone know why Lewis Hamilton’s BBC TV biopic contains interviews with other celebs simply because they are, er, black?

    Hamilton doesn’t seem to make a big deal out of it, so why does the BBC have to hitch the poor (well, not so poor) lad up to the race wagon?

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  15. George R says:

    ‘Daily Mail’:

    “BBC in new standards row as Clarkson jokes that truck drivers ‘murder prostitutes'”

    [Opening extract]:

    “The BBC has been plunged into fresh controversy after Jeremy Clarkson joked about murdering prostitutes on Top Gear.
    “In a rant broadcast last night, the outspoken presenter mocked lorry drivers by claiming they only care about fuel prices and killing prostitutes.
    “As he completed a ‘task’ driving a lorry, he said: ‘This is a hard job and I’m not just saying that to win favour with lorry drivers, it’s a hard job. Change gear, change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That’s a lot of effort in a day.'”
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082712/BBC-new-standards-row-Clarkson-jokes-truck-drivers-murder-prostitutes.html

       0 likes

  16. Martin says:

    Why am I not surprised that the BBC couldn’t find anyone who supported McCain in a queue of black voters?

    Ever thought they might be racists BBC?

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  17. George R says:

    Perhaps the BBC could explain why Brown (and Mandelson) like to visit the Islamic Gulf States, even though the results are poltically negative:

    “‘Fit for a king’ Gordon Brown gets a pampering at seven-star hotel during tour of oil-rich Gulf nations”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082750/Fit-king-Gordon-Brown-gets-pampering-seven-star-hotel-tour-oil-rich-Gulf-nations.html

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  18. angloscott says:

    “Does anyone know why Lewis Hamilton’s BBC TV biopic contains interviews with other celebs simply because they are, er, black?”
    Hugh Oxford | 03.11.08 – 9:35 pm |

    He looks quite pale to me, is he not a halfcaste (oops is that allowed now)cos as you rightly point out he hasnt used the race card at all as far as I know.

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  19. pounce says:

    Message to the BBC.

    I am British.
    I don’t give a shit about the US elections.
    I have been force fed the US elections since Jan 2008.
    Yes it is improtant but no more improtant than any other election.
    To that end I don’t want to find this insert on a British story.
    http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/9161/capturemx5.jpg
    It is not News for 99.9999% of the non American population of this world.
    It is not front page news for the British Public.

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  20. archduke says:

    something that nots being too well reported over here… americans are arming themselves.

    “I was at a local gun show here in Indiana on Saturday and by 10 a.m. the place was packed. Several dealers were doing land office business. I picked up a nice Yugo M66 (SKS knockoff), complete with scope, for not too much, plus lots of 7.62 x 39 ammo.

    If His Majesty gets elected tomorrow, gun dealers will definitely have the best Christmas season they’ve seen in years.”

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  21. Martin says:

    archduke: My mate who lives in Texas has an AK-47. Nice bit of kit it is as well.

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  22. Devil's Advocate says:

    Kill the Beeb:
    Blacks only radio station funded by the licence payer.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/ cont…k_feature.shtml
    Kill the Beeb | 03.11.08 – 9:12 pm | #

    A little weak, this one.

    Blacks pay the licence fee too. R4 is aimed at white middle classes, this is aimed at a Black or “urban” audience. No reason whites can’t listen to it if they enjoy the output.

       0 likes

  23. Jon says:

    angloscott | 03.11.08 – 10:20 pm |

    No Lewis Hamilton has not – it is only the BBC who do. Lewis Hamilton is a great bloke and is an asset to his sport and long may it continue.

       0 likes

  24. Frankos says:

    A little weak, this one.

    Blacks pay the licence fee too. R4 is aimed at white middle classes, this is aimed at a Black or “urban” audience. No reason whites can’t listen to it if they enjoy the output.
    Why call it Black radio? Who says R4 is aimed at white middle classes? What makes you think black middle classes or any class wouldn’t be interested in a particular radio station? Pigeon holing people is one of the reasons the BBC is so irritating –people can quite happily think for themselves and enjoy music and culture outside of their own.

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  25. dross says:

    Devil’s Advocate | 03.11.08 – 10:41 pm |

    Tune your FM radio in around South East London, you’ll find every bit of space filled with ‘black’ pirate stations. Tell us why does the bbc feel the need to add to a market that’s already overflowing.

    Actually, don’t bother…

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  26. Kill the Beeb says:

    Come on Devil’s Advocate. Calling it Black Radio is just racist, as you well know. Not unless you actually are Darkus Howell.

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  27. Jason says:

    Devil’s Advocate | 03.11.08 – 10:41 pm | #

    One of the most offensive things I find about the leftist mindset is their assumption that people should be enslaved to their “tribe” and should be expected to adhere to attitudes and tastes attributed to that tribe.

    Perhaps the worst example I ever saw of this was on the now infamous Seattle schools authority website, whose page about racism (now taken down after thousands of complaints) explained how “white” methods of teaching were racist because black and Hispanics think differently and don’t have the “future time orientation” that whites do.

    In other words, “only whites plan ahead – people of color on the other hand, live for instant gratification.”

    I can only imagine what it must have felt like for a black or Hispanic person happening upon that web page and thinking “oh, so because I’m black I’m expected to think a certain way?”

    The same goes for those who think that black people are somehow genetically predisposed to enjoy rap, R&B, soul or reggae.

    Doubtless many do – just as there will be many blacks who think that the idea of a “black radio station” is fantastic.

    But what about black people who don’t see themselves as belonging to a particular tribe and don’t feel obliged to hold certain views or have certain tastes that are commonly identified with their ethnicity? Isn’t the idea of a license-funded radio station which claims to be “aimed at them” a little patronizing and insulting?

    In the same way, I would feel insulted if the BBC explicitly introduced a “White” radio station. It would be as if they were saying, “you’re white – here are some things which should interest you.” My reaction would be: “Go f**k yourself!”

    Is it presumed that because I’m white I like Christopher Cross and Celine Dion? That I follow the cricket? That I can’t dance? That I enjoy cheese and crackers meals?

    Radio 4 is “aimed at whites”? No no no no no no no! See where we’re at? If Radio 4 is aimed at whites then the BBC thinks that all whites are all Labour supporting leftists.

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  28. Cassandra says:

    The BBC website is not reporting the EU commissions report that the UK is one of the worst placed EU regions to weather the economic storm engulfing Europe!
    Hmmm, I wonder why the BBC dont think its newsworthy? They are usually only too keen to report on the EU central regime.
    Gordon Brown doesnt want to be reminded that he repeatedly stated that the UK was BEST placed to weather the economic storms ahead and the uber loyal BBC is only too keen to protect Brown!

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  29. toomuch says:

    This morning at about 4:20 al-beeb’s so-called World Service surpassed its own low standards. They had one Mary Robinson waffle on, unchallenged, about how the “occupier” is destroying civilization, culture, society, etc. in Gaza. Israel has not been present in the place since August 2005. So who is she talking about? Could it be Hamas and its failure to bring peace and prosperity to the admittedly sorry enclave? So dear readers, you see what happens when you have no controls over a state broadcasting service. What’s a democratic? country like Britain doing running any section of the media?

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  30. Martin says:

    Classic BBC shite. Radio 5 phone in is “who would you vote for if you had a say in the US election?”

    What a pointless question from beeboids.

    Oh and I see SarahPalin has been cleared of any wrong doing in Troopergate. What a shock.

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  31. morgan the pirate. says:

    Devil’s Advocate |
    R4 is aimed at white middle classes,

    doesn’t say it in the name though doe’s it you dumbarse.

    Devil’s Advocate |
    No reason whites can’t listen to it if they enjoy the output.

    why thanks for that i’ll keep your patronising words in mind.

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  32. George R says:

    BBC report:

    “Waiting for Bali bomber executions”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7706618.stm

    A recent ‘Jihadwatch’ report provided more information about the nature and attitude of the three Islamic jihadist perpetrators of the Indonesian mass murders:

    “Bali bombers vow revenge for executions and say: ‘I’ve never regretted these bombings…I will not ask for forgiveness from those infidels”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022910.php

       0 likes

  33. George R says:

    BBC report:

    “Bomb blasts injure 60 in Thailand.”

    Likely perpetrators: ISLAMIC JIHADISTS, again. The nearest the BBC can get to this description: “Muslim insurgents”:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7707594.stm

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  34. Tom says:

    On this morning’s Toady programme, I thought I heard Dhiren Adebayo (supposedly Dottun’s smarter brother) say something like ’50 years ago, Barack Obama wouldn’t even have been allowed to vote.’

    Ms Montagu did not query this.

    Does anybody know when Black suffrage was first established in the state of Illinois?

    I’m guessing sometime in the 1860s?????

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  35. George R says:

    Apparently in the Beeboid world, it’s OK to write about the fear of being in Baghdad, calling it ‘Baghdadophobia’, but it’s not OK to write about the fear of Islam and call it ‘Islamophobia’:
    “Viewpoint: Bad case of Baghdadophobia”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7706872.stm

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  36. ryan says:

    Kim Ghattas, Washington Correspondent
    11.16am News24, November 4.

    “He [John McCain] still believes that the race is tighter then it actually really is.”

    “It is about the possibilities that it has opened up, not so much necessarily about who is going to win, though of course everybody is looking forward to the first [oops Kim betrays her bias and corrects herself] or a lot of people are looking forward to the first African-Amercian president.”

    Some much for balance!

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  37. JohnA says:

    toomuch

    I heard that unctious Mary Robinson clip. As usual, blaming Israel for how the Palestinians and Hamas run Gaza.

    She is a perennial favourite of the BBC, of course. A kind of upper-class lawyer version of Orla Guerin.

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  38. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Tom | 04.11.08 – 10:42 am |

    Does anybody know when Black suffrage was first established in the state of Illinois?

    I’m guessing sometime in the 1860s?????

    Quite right.

    In actual fact, even before the Civil War (or, as they teach it in Atlanta schools, the War Between the States Due to Northern Aggression Against States Rights) when Pennsylvania officially became a state in 1776, it provided for voting rights of all its citizens, regardless of color. Of course, females – white or black – were not allowed to vote until the 19th Amendment, passed in 1920.

    (Women’s voting rights in the UK were not fully established until 1928. So there.)

    This little lie about a black man not having the right to vote “50 years ago” is a distortion, probably based on total ignorance, of the Voting Rights Act signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1965. That didn’t create the right for blacks to vote: they already had that right. The Voting Rights Act provided for the government’s ability to go enforce that right where necessary.

    This involves things like sending police and other officials to black voting areas to make sure nobody tried to stop them from voting, or create unnecessary obstacles, etc. Ironically, not only is this the tactic now in use by Obamessiah supporters, but it’s the very presence of these officers in places like, you know Florida in 2000, and even in the voting district next to mine in NYC, that leads paranoid, angry types to claim that those police are actually there to scare black folks away.

    As Thomas Gray said, “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”

    The Beeboids must be very blissful in their ignorance of US matters. What’s worse – and this is my real objection, and the main reason I participate in the comments on this blog – is that they are educating you and all citizens of my country’s greatest ally into believing ugly lies about the US.

    I’d be willing to bet that nobody at the BBC is aware of this. I’d also be willing to bet that if one asked, the vast majority of them would believe it to be true.

    The BBC is not informing you: they’re misleading you, allowing people to tell you lies, slowly but surely creating an even more negative view of the US than you guys already have. Pathetic, isn’t?

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  39. Mike_s says:

    BBC’s pro islamist bias
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7707594.stm

    Repeating 3 times “muslim majority in south”.
    And another quote;
    “Thailand’s three far southern provinces – Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani – were an ethnic Malay sultanate until mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed the region in 1902.”

    Now wikipedia;
    “According to the last census (2000) 95% of Thais are Buddhists of the Theravada tradition. Muslims are the second largest religious group in Thailand at 4.6%. Thailand’s southernmost provinces – Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and part of Songkhla Chumphon have dominant Muslim populations, consisting of both ethnic Thai and Malay.[verification needed] Most often Muslims live in separate communities from non-Muslims. The southern tip of Thailand is mostly ethnic Malays. Christians, mainly Catholics, represent 0.75% of the population. A tiny but influential community of Sikhs in Thailand and some Hindus also live in the country’s cities, and are heavily engaged in retail commerce. There is also a small Jewish community in Thailand, dating back to the 17th century. Since 2001, Muslim activists, generally described by the Thai government as terrorists or separatists, have rallied against the central government because of alleged corruption and ethnic bias on the part of officials.”
    No other minorities are bomming.

    and for history;
    “Siam retains an immemorial tradition of trade with its neighboring states and the cultures of the Indian ocean and the South China sea. European trade and influence arrived to Thailand in the 16th century, beginning with the Portuguese. Despite European pressure, Thailand is the only Southeast Asian nation never to have been colonised. Two main reasons for this were that Thailand had a long succession of very able rulers in the 1800s and that it was able to exploit the rivalry and tension between the French and the British. As a result, the country remained as a buffer state between parts of Southeast Asia that were colonized by the two colonial powers. Despite this, Western influence led to many reforms in the 19th century and major concessions, most notably being the loss of large territory on the east side of the Mekong to the French and the step by step absorption by Britain of the Shan (Thai Yai) States (now in Burma) and the Malay Peninsula. The loss initially included Penang and Tumasik and eventually culminated in the loss of three predominantly ethnic-Malay southern provinces, which later became Malaysia’s three northern states, under the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909.”

    So part of Malaysia where part of Thailand.

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