Manchester Students Stop the War Association and the Central London Peace Group held a demonstration at BBC Bush House on the Aldwych. The front of the building was decorated with placards with slogans such as 'Propaganda Kills' and 'Afghanistan: Media Silence is Deafening'. Meanwhile a group of fifty protesters rushed into the building to take their message to its occupants. They marched noisily to the top of the building and around the sound-studios, leaving leaflets as they went. On returning to the lobby, where the Police had now arrived, speakers denounced the BBC's twisted reporting of the Occupation of Palestine and their promotion of the Bush regime's proposed war on Iraq before. Having being told by an employee that he was not listening to the BBC side of the story, one demonstrator replied that we listen to their side of the story every day. Students from UCL and SOAS also supported this action. There were no arrests.

Details of our complaints are listed below

That the BBC of systematically tailors its news coverage to build public support for US foreign policy objectives

In other words, accepting British license-payers money to act as a US government propaganda outlet

Key area of censorship:

Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories - the ethnic cleansing of Palestine becomes 'anti-terrorist measures', in strict accordance with Washington guidelines. Similarly political-assassination by the Israeli military becomes 'targeted killing'.

To mislead the public to such an extent over such a vital issue is a breach of the BBC charter, a betrayal of the public trust and tantamount to a campaign of lies.

Examples of propaganda:

1. War propaganda. 4th February

On BBC website masthead, Hitler stands in front of an Iraqi flag (see picture). A connection is made between Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. Hitler's armies attacked and defeated most of Western Europe and were finally defeated by an Alliance of the foremost military powers on Earth. Hussein's forces, prior to being decimated in the Gulf War, were unable to comprehensively defeat their neighbour Iran. After complaints the graphic was removed without comment.

2. Omission - The Turkish Bombing of Kurds in Northern Iraq is important news as it makes a nonsense of the reason given for the existence of the No-fly zones: to protect minorities such as the Kurds from Iraqi attack. BBC reporters continue to repeat this pretext as if it were fact.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2000/1025nfly.htm

3. Language used to mislead public - Reports below from BBC News website 13/2/03 and 6/11/02 Include some hallmarks of the campaign to legitimize the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Territories. Israeli attacks have become 'a clampdown' or 'incursions'. Men killed climbing a fence died 'in clashes'. Assassination becomes 'targeted killings'. It is difficult to find BBC news reportage from the Middle East, which does not contain similar distortion.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2408031.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2751801.stm

Clearly this is more than a lover's tiff between the British public and the BBC. We are realising now that the government media is no more reliable than the corporate media. On Valentine's night there were no roses for the BBC. How long do they expect to be rewarded for their deceptions with our licence-fee money?