Middle East Monitor@MiddleEastMnt
A British court has heard evidence that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) “misled” its audience during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
The evidence was presented as part of documents in a case being heard by a UK employment tribunal, in which five journalists of Arab origin accuse the BBC of discrimination and of unfairly dismissing four of them for refusing what they described as racist and discriminatory practices within BBC Arabic service.
The five complainants are Ahmed Rouaba, of Algerian origin; Dima Odeh, of Syrian origin; Nahed Najar, of Palestinian origin; and Mohamed El-Ashiry and Amer Sultan, both of Egyptian origin. The claimants are represented in the case by John Barnes from Albertson Solicitors. This is the first case of its kind brought by this number of journalists from the Arabic of the BBC Service of World Service against the long-standing news corporation.
Veteran journalist Amer Sultan, who is of Egyptian origin and one of the five claimants, accused BBC management of unfair dismissal. He said this was partly due to his reporting of what he described as “serious breaches” of the BBC editorial guidelines in the early weeks of the Israeli war on Gaza, which began on 7th October 2023.
During last court session, it was revealed that Sultan—who worked for 17 years on the BBC’s Arabic website and television—had reported examples of breaches of the Guidelines to BBC World Service management.
According to case documents, Liliane Landor, the former director of the World Service, held what were described as “listening sessions” to understand what went wrong and to discuss the reasons behind mistakes made by the BBC at the start of the war. These mistakes had sparked widespread criticism among BBC journalists and in political and media circles in Britain and the Middle East.
middleeastmonitor.com/20260322-bbc-i…
