Human rights groups and free speech campaigners reacted differently to a call to cut or censor far-right British National Party (BNP) election broadcasts scheduled for 21 April, one calling for straight censorship “in the interests of the viewer,” another urging close review of the broadcast, while Index on Censorship expressed outright opposition. (20-APR-05)
The party, whose leader Nick Griffin is currently on trial charged with inciting racial hatred, says it is fielding about 120 candidates for the 5 May poll, just above the legal threshold required for the right to broadcast election material.
Lester Holloway of equal rights campaigners the 1990 Trust said broadcasters should censor their promotional films, reported Reuters. “They have a responsibility not just to consider whether something is strictly legal or not, they have a responsibility to the viewer,” Holloway was reported as saying.
“The BNP simply cannot be trusted to not put out material which runs the risk of inciting racial hatred and possibly causing public disorder.”
The editor-in-chief of Index on Censorship, Ursula Owen, said she was disturbed by the calls. “We have laws against race hatred but the law also requires that a party election manifesto is broadcast if the party meets the qualifying requirements — which the BNP does.
“We have to rely on the good sense of the British viewer to see through the BNP´s racist agenda, to answer with alternative agendas. Otherwise, if we can silence them, who knows who, one day, will silence us?”
A spokesman for human rights group Liberty expressed caution in calling for censorship, but voiced the organisation’s concern about any broadcast that could “inflame” racial tensions in Britain, calling on broadcasters to review the broadcast. Parties that qualify for election airtime are still bound by laws prohibiting libel and race hate laws.
However Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti criticised the BNP’s “abuse” of images from Britain’s World War II struggle against Nazi Germany. The BNP’s founders and core membership are rooted in neo-fascist and neo-Nazi activities.
“In his last broadcast, Mr Griffin had the audacity to stand in front of a Spitfire and rail against the decent values that the pilots fought and died for. We should all be outraged at any repetition of this,” Chakrabarti said.
But Owen added: “The question that must always be asked about censorship is: who decides? We have to allow even those with appalling views to participate in our democratic debate.”
If broadcasters decide that the BNP broadcasts do not breach libel and race hatred laws, all British terrestrial television stations will air the BNP broadcast on the evening of 21 April. Networks have aired edited versions of BNP party political broadcasts in the past.
The BNP itself has said that the broadcast had passed the BBC’s legal tests, although it had been required to make “technical changes” to the actual video tape delivered to the broadcaster.
