Protest against BBC gagging of reporters!

An article in the BBC's internal magazine Ariel states:

"The BBC's deputy head of news, Mark Damazer, said that there was a 'need to balance a respect for civil liberties with the BBC's need to be impartial.'

'The view taken by the BBC about this weekend's peace march is that senior editorial decision makers and people who present the BBC's news programmes should not attend the march,' he said."

This talk of "balance" is nonsense.

There was no such ban on presenters taking part in the Countryside Alliance march in September.

This is purely an attempt to intimidate senior news staff from challenging the government on Iraq. Run by Tony's cronies, BBC staff are under pressure from the government to back the war drive.

Reporters with political views critical of the establishment often generate the finest investigative reporting, precisely because they ask penetrating questions.

Good reporting does not depend on a journalist's political views, but on their ability to present key facts and opinions clearly and to probe each in a rigorous and critical manner.

Moreover, it just so happens that BBC 1 will, at 12.05pm on Saturday -- just as the anti-war march is starting -- be going live to the Arsenal vs Man Utd match. What's more important? 11 people on a football pitch or millions on the streets across the world and the half-million casualties in Iraq that the UN calculates will result from war?

Please send your comments on this blatant censorship to
 Mark.Damazer@bbc.co.uk
Or phone him at the BBC on 020 7240 3456