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"die-in" on BBC steps to challenge biased reporting on Gaza

Global Intifada | 22.11.2012 11:57 | Anti-militarism | Palestine | Birmingham

*PRESS RELEASE*

from WEST MIDLANDS PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN and

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM STUDENTS FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE

For immediate release - 22nd November 2012

*"DIE-IN" ON BBC STEPS TO CHALLENGE BIASED REPORTING ON GAZA*

Campaigners for Palestinian human rights in the West Midlands have called a "die-in" on the steps of the BBC at the Mailbox in Birmingham on Thursday evening, to protest against its biased reporting on the recent Israeli assault on Gaza.

Activists will read out the names of Palestinian civilians who have been killed in the bombings over the past week and a group of children will hand in a protest letter to the BBC management along with a portfolio of evidence that the BBC's coverage is biased towards the Israeli government and is not reporting the facts.

Brian Sheridan, Secretary of West Midlands Palestine Solidarity Campaign (WM PSC), said: "We want to make the public aware that since hostilities began this month there have been 162 Palestinians killed and 5 Israelis; and that from January 2012 to November 2012, 78 Palestinians were killed by Israeli rockets with only 1 Israeli killed.

"The BBC's coverage of events in Gaza is a grotesque inversion of reality. Palestinians have the right to defend themselves.This war was started to allow Israel to test its new missile defence system, and unconditional support from Britain and the US allows Israel to continue to act with impunity.

"As well as mourning the deaths of all the civilians killed in this conflict we mourn the death of the BBC as an icon of investigative journalism."

Naeem Malik, Chair of WM PSC, said:

"I am amazed at the BBC coverage of the attack on Gaza.The BBC needs to know that it is all about the occupation, the siege, the house demolitions, the checkpoints and the continuous humiliation of the Palestinians for the last six decades and more. It has nothing to do with the rockets - they are only a response to the decades of oppression by the Israeli state and the abysmal response from the so-called international community.

"I was shocked and angry at how Jeremy Bowen on the BBC News minimised the carnage by suggesting that Gaza has a culture of martyrdom. It reflects the stereotype that Israel wants to portray.It is racism in the extreme."

The "Die-in" will be held from6pm to 7pm on Thursday 22nd November at the Mailbox.

WM PSC has also organised coaches to take protesters to London on Saturday for the national PSC demonstration for Gaza.


[ ends ]


*Notes for editors:*

1.The source for the list of casualties to be read out is here: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=538489

Another reliable source of statistics:

 http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2012/11/israel-and-palestinians?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/gaza_abacus

2.Contacts for further information:

*WM PSC:*

Brian Sheridan 0784 516  7243pscwm@yahoo.co.uk

Chris Khamis0778 534  2124chris@csk-strategies.co.uk

Naeem Malik0772 142  7690nmalik50@yahoo.com

*University of Birmingham Students for Justice in Palestine:*

April Reilly0798 072  0619unefillesansfrontieres@riseup.net

3.WM PSC website: http://www.westmidspsc.org/

UoB Students for Justice in Palestine Facebook page:

 http://www.facebook.com/groups/25314630632/

Global Intifada

Comments

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donate your licence fee to gaza

22.11.2012 14:51

during operation cast lead the BBC refused to air the DEC appeal raising funds for the Gaza relief effort. at the time there was an idea floated that people should donate their licence fee to Gaza instead of paying it to the BBC.

i think the idea was a really good one and would work best with a demand, which if met, people would then begin paying their licence fees again (or go back to doing whatever they were doing before)

the campaign could then also organise around resisting any attempts to reclaim the money, which could then feed into wider non-payment campaigns which would be very relevant in these times.

anyway, just a thought!

licencefeetogaza


BBC loves the death and destruction in Gaza

22.11.2012 17:26

Few will pay proper attention to the details of the holocaust Israeli terrorists carefully inflicted on Gaza. In Britain, and across much of the world where BBC propaganda dominates, the BBC will see to this.

Those of us that give a damn will discover that the thousands of zionist terrorist bombs were carefully planted to eliminate all aspects of governmental infrastructure in Gaza. Remember how the Palestinians were supposed to be looking for greater recognition at the UN, and the BBC told us they were too 'sub-Human' to be given any real Human rights? Well, this attack was designed to minimise all ability of the Palestinians in Gaza to organise themselves effectively.

Team 'Jimmy Saville' (the same people at the BBC that gave Saville TV shows explicitly designed to give him 'access' to children are the same people who support Israel and its crimes against Humanity) is the biggest force at the BBC, and controls the content of all the departments, news, education and entertainment.

The child abuse flows directly from the fact that security services within Britain have always controlled their targets by blackmail, and with the loss of the stigma associated with homosexual behaviour, and with business crime (insider trading, etc) seen as acceptable, sexual assaults against children provide the last reliable lever. The abusing BBC personalities themselves are of no direct interest to MI5, but their circle of fellow abusers always contains people who are.

Even when the BBC is not directly recruiting paedophiles, it is seeking highly sociopathic employees. Remember all those scandals revolving around the BBC's criminal abuse of phone-in competitions, including those associated with 'Children in Need'. Despite the acceptance of mass fraud involving millions of pounds of phone-charges, the British government ensured none of the BBC people responsible even went to court.

The BBC is anti whosoever the powers-that-be are current aiming to hurt, torture, degrade, or mass murder. So the BBC bashes the poor, the weak, the socially concerned and the Humanists within the UK. On a global scale, if you are the enemy of Obama, the zionists, the NATO war machine, or any of the monsters that seek to dominate the planet, the BBC considers you fit only for a bullet to the head, or a missile from a 'drone'.

To return to Gaza, the governmental infrastructure of that nation has been turned to rubble by Israeli war criminals, war criminals that no longer fear arrest in the UK as a direct result of actions carried out by the Liberal Party when it took power at the last general election.

The BBC has stated over and over that all members of the administration in Gaza are legitimate targets for murder, alongside members of their family, no matter how young. The BBC has stated over and over that any building associated with any member of the administration (like a sports centre under the control of the minister for sport) is a legitimate target for zionist bombs, no matter how much the people of Gaza will be hurt by the loss of their facilities.

You know your local sports centre? If that was in Gaza, the BBC would say "bomb it". You know you local police station? If that was in Gaza, the BBC would say "bomb it". You know your local shopping centre? If that was in Gaza, the BBC would say "bomb it".

And yet, how many of you will return to the BBC to watch your 'reality TV shows', third-rate dramas chocked full of social-control messages, and 'news' programs that could easily have appeared on the tele-screens in Orwell's '1984'.

Modern tech means you can enjoy all the tele-visual entertainment you want without EVER turning on the depravities at the BBC. If you refuse to show zero tolerance for the evils at the BBC, do not complain when those evils consume you, as you have seen them consume the poor Humans of Gaza during recent days!

luke


Boo's at Ten.

22.11.2012 21:15

"And yet, how many of you will return to the BBC to watch your 'reality TV shows', third-rate dramas chocked full of social-control messages, and 'news' programs that could easily have appeared on the tele-screens in Orwell's '1984'."

Some really great writing and you could sharpen it up with the fact that the BBC now produce an unwatchable product. Has been for a while.

Switch the BBC News on on any given day and all you will find is some prat standing outside Downing Street desperately trying to convince us that the thing that is going on inside is desperately important and we all have to know about it. This is what you get when the journo's are in the pockets of the powerful.

No-one cares, nobody is listening.

The BBC is too parochial, this is the by-product of years of control freakery by its staff and the Jeremy McMurnahan-Dimbelby'Silverton's of this world.

This latest thing with Gaza is the last fucking straw.

anonymous