Furious campaigners are set to stage a protest at the BBC over a controversial Gaza documentary.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) announced the demonstration outside Broadcasting House in London next Tuesday after it emerged the film’s narrator was the son of a Hamas deputy minister.
The group also criticised the broadcaster’s coverage of the return of the bodies of four Israeli hostages by the terrorists on Thursday as part of the ceasefire deal.
A CAA spokesman said: “The BBC has no shame and Britain has had enough.
« For over 16 months, we have watched our national broadcaster provide ever more sympathetic coverage to a proscribed terrorist organisation, hiding behind claims of impartiality.
« There is nothing impartial about giving credibility to the claims of terrorists.
« Providing a platform for terrorists’ propaganda, downplaying their crimes and continuing to refuse to call them terrorists is the BBC putting its thumb on the scale.
« It is extremely partial, and inaccurate. It is a breach of the BBC’s editorial guidelines and a betrayal of licence fee payers.
« That is why we are inviting everyone to join us at 7pm on Tuesday outside the Broadcasting House.
« Enough is enough. It is time for the BBC to stop whitewashing terrorism. There must be an independent investigation into its bias in relation to its Middle East coverage.”
It comes after Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she would discuss the documentary shown on Monday on BBC Two.
Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone was narrated by 13-year-old Abdullah Al-Yazouri, who speaks about what life is like in the territory amid the war between Israel and Hamas.
It later emerged that he is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
The BBC apologised « for the omission of that detail from the original film », and has edited the programme.
There have been calls for the BBC to pull the documentary and provide information about due diligence and duty of care.
The BBC said the new text attached to the film reads: « The narrator of this film is 13-year-old Abdullah. His father has worked as a deputy agriculture minister for the Hamas-run government in Gaza. The production team had full editorial control of filming with Abdullah. »
The corporation also said it followed its « usual compliance procedures in the making of this film, but we had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we compiled and then broadcast the finished film ».
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