A crowd of protesters surrounded the BBC Oxford Studios to express their anger at the broadcaster’s refusal to air an aid appeal for Gaza.
More than 100 demonstrators gathered on Sunday night, followed by a smaller protest the next day. Protesters, both students and locals, chanted “BBC, shame on you!” and waved banners reading “Bloody Biased Corporation.”
The BBC has declined to broadcast an appeal by Disasters Emergency Committee to raise money for injured or homeless people in Gaza as they believe it will compromise the impartiality of their reporting.
Amy Gilligan, a student at Exeter College, said she had joined the protest as part of a wider demonstration against the BBC, “people in London today were standing outside of the BBC studios burning their TV licences because people aren’t willing to put up with the… unwillingness to aid a humanitarian cause any more.”
She accused the broadcaster of “bias broadcasting of the conflict.” She added, “so much more air time is given to the Israeli side of the story.”
A spokesperson for the BBC said, “the BBC decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story.”
Protest organiser, Tony Richardson of the Oxford Palestine Solidarity Campaign (OPSC), said that there were “quite a few students present” at the protest. He said, “the local PSC works quite closely with students… We were all together outside the Bodleian arguing the same thing.”
Dominic Williams from St. Catherine’s college said that the protest in Oxford would “make people think about the campaign.” He said that it was important that the BBC showed the appeal because “lots of people watch the BBC and it would raise a lot of money.”
He stressed that it was “a humanitarian appeal” because “people in Gaza need aid.”
He argued that in an effort to show an equal representation of the conflict, the BBC had not properly emphasised the plight of people living in Gaza.
Russell Ingis, a postgrad at St. Hughes, said “we all feel that this decision represents a total failure of compassion and a total lack of humanity.”
The police were present but said they were not expecting any violence.
