Author Archives: Laban

reports on the trial of Saddam Hussein, declaring ‘Saddams’s trial is not a farce’.

Pootergeek is concerned for him.

I think I have just read John Simpson’s final serious news report. It is in many ways a frightening document; I am afraid on his behalf. Apart from the factual content that we have come to expect from the BBC even at its most feeble, it breaks metropolitan media convention in so many ways that I wonder if he composed it for a bet whilst under the influence of alcohol. Note the last-Friday-before-Christmas timestamp and wonder what kind of post-partying regrets will flicker across his face when Matthew Parris turns up on his doorstep wearing an ankle-length leather raincoat and bitchslaps Simpson with the matching gloves before agents of the W1 Stasi take him away to an “asylum” somewhere in darkest Peckham.

Read the whole thing. How long before Simpson is sacked and replaced by Justin Webb or Matt Frei ?

UPDATE – more remarkably balanced reporting on Africa.

(an addition to Toby’s post)

Picture used by the BBC to illustrate the British Empire :

Picture used by the BBC to illustrate the Ottoman Empire :

The ‘S-word’ is conspicuously absent from the Ottoman portrait, despite the importance of the institution to that empire.

that BBC licence-payers have just coughed up for, and the BBC’s attempts, reported in the Sunday Times, to justify the expenditure:

The BBC was embarrassed last night by e-mails that showed it “invented” a justification for spending £60,000 of licence payers’ money commissioning a Tracey Emin sculpture.

Emin’s Roman Standard sculpture of a bird on a post was bought by the BBC at a time when Mark Thompson, its director-general, was announcing big cost cuts.

Internal e-mails revealed serious doubts within the organisation about spending so much on a sculpture that had no links to the corporation.

An e-mail dated February 22 from senior BBC publicist Janet Morrow to Vanda Rumney, head of communications, gave warning that the commission could create a “sticky situation on the public art front which could blow up”.

Morrow noted that the sculpture “is not connected to a BBC building, nor is it linked in any way to a BBC broadcast or BBC activity — the BBC has purely used licence fee money to create a public sculpture”.

She then said she had “invented” a “plausible line” to justify the commission.

This is not an example of bias. But the BBC do like to display their multicultural virtues and awareness of diverse faiths.

So this cricket report is rather unfortunate.

“Flintoff capitalised two overs later, with a delivery typical of former Pakistan captain Waqar Younis, utilising reverse-swing to beat new batsman Mohammad Yousuf.”

New batsman, eh ? Most people would think 59 Tests, over 4,000 runs and 13 centuries made Mohammad Yousuf quite an experienced player. What could produce such an error ?

The clue lies in the Cricinfo link above, which includes the line “Also known as Yousuf Youhana“.

As Yousuf Youhana, he was the only Catholic batsman in the Pakistan squad until his recent and controversial conversion to Islam – an event reported by, among others, the BBC.

has a sequel to our earlier post about the attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt – attacks which were reported on Al Qaeda sites before they made the BBC site.

It’s worth quoting in full:

Only last month, the port city of Alexandria saw some of the worst sectarian disturbances the country has ever seen.

This is from the BBC’s ‘Arab affairs analyst’ Magdi Abdelhadi, comenting on the Egyptian government’s attempts to rein in the Muslim Brotherhood’s inflammatory rhetoric (read it here).

Let’s run through those ‘sectarian disturbances’ again, shall we? As reported by… the BBC.

A Muslim man stabbed a Coptic Christian nun. Then a couple of days later 5000 Muslim extremists tried to storm a Coptic church, and in the course of pitched battles with the police three of them got themselves killed.

But I bet the nun was acting really disturbingly.

news stories about the outraging of Muslim sensibilities, such as “US Guantanamo guard kicked Koran“, or the latest insult in Afghanistan.

Stories of outrages against Christians fare somewhat worse. The continiung demonstrations by thousands of Muslims outside a Coptic church in Alexandria, the stabbing of a nun and the reported (by this Coptic weblogger) deployment of army units against the demonstrators are nowhere reported on the BBC News website.

Although the story’s passed the BBC by, Al Quaeda have apparently picked it up.

UPDATE 22/10/05 – the BBC have now picked up the story – at 2.19 this morning.

This morning’s Broadcasting House on Radio Four featured something I don’t think I’ve heard before on a news programme.

Around half an hour in there was a long item on asylum seekers, and the alleged shortcomings of the information used by the government to decide on asylum claims. We heard from the Refugee Council, a couple of other asylum pressure groups, Amnesty International and a solicitor specialising in asylum claims, who all told more or less the same story.

Apparently the government immigration and asylum service doesn’t deliberately tell untruths – but ‘they’re selective in what information they choose to put in and to leave out’. You could say the same about another State agency, too – but no matter. So far, so standard for the BBC.

What was unusual about this story ? The interviews with asylum seekers at the beginning and end of the piece. The opening interviews were overdubbed with weepy strings – the sort of music you might hear in a documentary about the Warsaw Ghetto, or the Aberfan disaster.

The final interviews – of women at the Crossroads Women’s Centre in London – were accompanied by mournful piano chords.

It looks as though the Broadcasting House producer has crossed the line between news (no matter how slanted) and propaganda. How long before interviews with senior Tories are accompanied by the Benny Hill theme ?

Over two years ago I wrote a short blog entry on ‘black American conservative writers’, and ended the piece with ‘A prize for anyone who ever gets to hear one of them on the BBC’.

Well, I’ve checked my mail and no-one’s written in, so I’ll have to drink the prize myself. For yesterday morning, the voice of Deroy Murdock was heard on Radio Four – admittedly as the last item (RealAudio) on the Saturday edition of the Today Programme, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Alright, he was introduced as writing for a ‘conservative’ journal, whereas the Guardian’s Gary Younge, whose ‘personal view’ prefaced the interview, was not apparently a writer for a ‘liberal’ or ‘left-wing’ publication (other guest Alvin Hall is a BBC favourite) – but hey, a step at a time – it’s difficult for these guys.

Let’s hope the BBC show more respect for intellectual diversity in future, and we get to hear from people like Thomas Sowell and John McWhorter. The BBCs usual spokespeople for black America are more in the mould of Bonnie Greer, a writer and long-time UK resident. In December 2001 BBC TV ran two documentaries, looking at the 9/11 attacks from a pro and anti-American perspective. At the time I wasn’t blogging, but I made a few notes.

“A couple of nights ago BBC2 featured a documentary by Bonnie Greer, who started by saying what a patriot she was (she left the US for Britain some years ago) before trawling her immediate family (who to a man or woman thought ‘the chickens were coming home to roost’) then various Chicagoans for their views. She nodded wisely when people said ‘what goes round, comes round’, but those who, like the solemn 10 year old boy, said ‘these people should be put to death’ were pointed out as examples of US ‘insularity’ and lack of empathy with the Muslim world.”

I remember discussing the programme at work the following day, and saying that I hoped the pro-American show, to be broadcast that evening, would redress the balance.

“What do you mean ?” said a colleague, “that WAS the pro-American view !”

UPDATE – Commenter David H points out that the linguist Professor John McWhorter, unknown to the BBC (other linguistics professors are luckier), has a long piece in today’s Sunday Times.

UPDATE 2 – Clive Davis with the understatement of the year.

“It’s not often you hear a black conservative like Deroy Murdock given a chance to speak his mind.”

… yesterday’s Radio Four Test Match Special (for foreign visitors, the BBC’s wonderful cricket show – cricket being a ball game) was the first time that a commentary box guest has picked up an accoustic guitar and sung a song about the pleasures of heroin, to appreciative applause from the commentary team.

Rashid Ramda is an Algerian who has been in Belmarsh prison for the last ten years, accused of financing the 1995 Paris Metro bombings which killed 11 people, and fighting extradition to an uncivilised country where confessions are extracted by the use of torture. Judges agreed with him, blocking his extradition to France in 2002.

This site chronicles Mr Ramda’s many fine qualities, the hideous regime under which he is kept, and the ‘Scottish lady Ann’ who has been his only visitor.

You can listen to his “letters filled with poetry, descriptions of the Sahara, and discussions about English literature”, addressed to that same Scottish lady, on Radio Four FM on Thursday.

“Letters from Belmarsh – Thu 28 Jul, 20:00 – 20:30 30 mins

An extraordinary glimpse behind the bars of Belmarsh Prison, through the correspondence between a Scottish grandmother and a Muslim man fighting extradition to France. Rachid Ramda, accused of the Paris Metro bombing, sends letters filled with poetry, descriptions of the Sahara, and discussions about English literature”

UPDATE – the broadcast was pulled at (shortish) notice yesterday, to be replaced by an edition of Crossing Continents. I haven’t found out why. The link above is now defunct (indeed the programme seems to have disappeared ftom the BBC website), but the programme description is here.

Letters From Belmarsh

8.00-8.30pm BBC RADIO 4

Saleya Ahsan presents this programme about a Scottish grandmother, Ann, who, through a chance encounter, started writing to prisoners held under terrorism laws at Belmarsh. In the beginning, she knew nothing about the legislation, or about Muslims.“I’d never met one; there is no Muslim community where I live.” But over the last two years of correspondence, her perceptions, fears and beliefs have been challenged and changed, and this ordinary woman has become a fervent human rights campaigner – although she doesn’t like to be called a campaigner.

The men she writes to include an Algerian accused of having a role in the Nineties Paris Metro bombing, who has been held on remand for nine years without charge. He writes poetry to her. Through him, she learns about another severely depressed Algerian who has no arms and has had periods of solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.

Depression is an illness rife amongst the internees. None have seen their families since their detention yet there have been no charges, no trials and no convictions. Ann has become an unlikely expert in internment, the justice system and high-security prisons.

Presenter/Saleya Ahsan, Producer/Lynne Mennie

I have italicised a couple of lines above. What is NOT mentioned is that

a) Mr Ramda has been fighting extradition to France, so far successfully
b) like all Belmarsh detainees, Mr Ramda and his Algerian colleague are free to leave at any time, providing they leave the UK. if they prefer to remain in detention, that is their decision, unless they can find no other country willing to accept them. In which case, it might be asked, should they be free to live in the UK ?

Doubtless these pertinent questions will be answered in the programme itself. Anyone got a transcript ?