Sunday 10 January 2021

BBC Persian accused of “twice promoting the homophobic views of the Iranian regime”


Peter Tatchell wrote to Tim Davie, Fran Unsworth and Jamie Angus last week accusing the BBC's Persian service of “twice promoting the homophobic views of the Iranian regime”.
In one instance, on its website on 28 December 2020, BBC Persian published a post calling LGBTs “faggots”, compared them to opium addicts and people who commit incest and implied that they are an “abomination.” 

On another occasion, BBC Persian mockingly referred to “so-called” LGBT+ Pride and apparently attempted to out an Iranian interviewee. This was broadcast on its TV channel on 6 July 2019.
He also called for an inquiry “into persistent allegations that BBC Persian is infiltrated by staff who are apologists or possibly agents for the Iranian dictatorship” - an accusation I saw being made by Iranian activists on Twitter last year. 

The Telegraph reports that the online piece has now been amended with a correction stating: “In an earlier version of this article, a word was used to refer to homosexual relations in the historical context of Iran that is not among the terms that the BBC uses to describe sexual orientations and was therefore inappropriate.” But, apparently, the video is still available online.

The BBC said: “A freelance opinion piece has been updated with an acknowledgement on our website. We will provide a full response to Mr Tatchell in due course.”

Wonder who wrote that “freelance opinion piece”? An 'A. Khamenei, Tehran' possibly?

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