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6 November 2003 Edition

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BBC censors out of line

Sinn Féin was forced to take the BBC to court this week because the Corporation refused the party election coverage, arguing that interviewing Martin McGuinness after he gave evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry amounted to election coverage for Sinn Féin.

In the High Court on Wednesday, Judge Kerr asked the BBC if David Trimble was interviewed having seen his neighbour's house go on fire, would that count as election coverage for the Ulster Unionists, urging the BBC to give the matter some mature reflection overnight.

As we go to print the case has been adjourned but the BBC's censorship by omission is reminiscent of RTE's enthusiastic interpretation of the thankfully defunct Section 31 broadcasting ban on Sinn Féin.

British stations used actors to dub 'offending' Sinn Féin spokespersons to in some way circumvent the British ban. RTE, however, self-policed Section 31 to the extent that no member of Sinn Féin could be broadcast in any circumstances, even if, as in the famous case of Larry O'Toole, that member was also a trade union shop steward representing striking workers.

RTE at the time was dominated by reactionary cliques with a blatantly anti-republican agenda, most notably the Workers' Party. That one-sided agenda was in evidence again on RTE last Monday with the first episode of The Underworld.

It would be difficult to persuade republicans that a similarly reactionary political agenda does not exist within the BBC in the Six Counties.

Sinn Féin will not stand by and watch the rights and entitlements of the republican electorate being abused by the BBC or anyone else.


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