A common bugbear of commenters across sites and threads critical of the BBC is the way the BBC uses the word 'Asians' when reporting crimes, misdemeanours and other kinds of anti-social behaviour perpetrated by members of the Islamic community in the United Kingdom.
Reading around the internet suggests that this is an issue which some Sikhs, among others, also feel strongly about.
A detailed complaint to the BBC was posted on the Sikh internet forum Sikhsangat.com in 2009, and remains topical. It covered many concerns, among them this very issue, and makes for very interesting reading. Here's the relevant extract:
http://news.bbc.co.u...nds/8191833.stm [last accessed 29th October 2009] The link above refers to arrests made at the anti Islamic protest. The following is a quote from the article:
“I thought they were just football fans, but then a larger group of black and Asian people turned up and it all kicked off.”
Notice the term black and ‘Asian’ is used to refer to predominantly Islamic youth. There are a number of images and video footage taken at this event [widely available on the internet and YouTube] all showing the vast majority of heated youth were in fact Muslim. The BBC news article went on to quote:
“You had people burning the Union flag. People were being kicked - some of them weren't anything to do with the protests”Here, ‘Blacks’ and ‘Asians’ are further reported to have attacked white shoppers at the Bullring shopping complex in Birmingham. It is unfair and against the favour of all Asians (and the Black community) to camouflage a significantly Muslim issue as an Asian issue.
Further supporting the argument of loose reporting from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.u.../uk/8328743.stm [last accessed 26th October 2009]
Is a BBC news article in reference to the Gaza protests in January stating:“A branch of Starbucks coffee shop was looted and items including coffee mugs thrown at police."Again it is evident to note there is numerous video footage available on news websites and YouTube covering this incident. It is abundantly clear that Starbucks windows were getting smashed in by Muslim youth wearing traditional Saudi Arabian attire, some with Islamic/Arabic themed bandanas on their heads and others wrapped in Pakistan’s Islamic flags. In some videos you can hear Muslim youth shouting:“Allah hu Akbar”.
