Britain - BBC removes hate messages

Messages posted to a BBC radio forum in which anti-Semitic comments including a claim that Jews are allowed to kill non-Jews have finally been removed following a number of complaints from the public as well as Jewish communal groups.

For several days the BBC had refused to deal with the issue saying there was no breach of its own guidelines.

Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies said: "This particular posting has been removed, but the episode reveals a worrying mindset that can even countenance that this kind of comment is deemed an appropriate contribution to a reasoned debate. The Community Security Trust were quick to pick this up and their measured intervention should have resolved the issue. It is particularly troubling that the trigger for this, a programme about the prevalence of anti-Semitism was carried, significantly, not by the BBC, but by another channel."

Source: www.somethingjewish.co.uk

Date: July 20, 2007

By Leslie Bunder

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