Complaint
A listener complained that an interview with a Palestinian guest exemplified the BBC’s failure to show due accuracy and impartiality in its coverage of the Middle East because it failed to challenge him to set out his views on Hamas. The ECU assessed the complaint against the relevant standards set out in the BBC Editorial Guidelines.
Outcome
The guest, described as a “community leader and former businessman” was being interviewed about current conditions in Gaza and the hopes for peace, including the prospect of the technocratic government envisaged by the recently announced peace deal. The extent to which a question on his personal views on Hamas would bear on this subject was therefore limited, in the ECU’s view and the question not central to his eyewitness account of conditions and frustrations with the international community over aid. Context was provided by a BBC Middle East correspondent, who explained that the peace deal rested on the disarmament of Hamas but that there had been no signs of them giving up their weapons.
Not Upheld
