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Support for BBC World Service workers

George Galloway MP & Respect have given full support to workers at the BBC World Service, who are protesting against outsourcing and cutbacks. George Galloway has also tabled an Early Day Motion on the issue, as well as a Parliamentary question asking if the government approves of the BBC agreeing to pre-censorship of news content from Pakistan.

Bectu and the NUJ are in dispute with the BBC over the outsourcing of the work of the Urdu, Hindi, and Nepali services of the world service to India Pakistan and Nepal. The move, which is designed to save money, is a threat to both job security personal safety and job security.

Journalists from the sections involved hold a picket outside the front of of Bush House every Thursday at 12.45 - and they are looking for support.

It is an important dispute and solidarity needs to be stepped up. Most of the existing staff are being offered a choice between redundancy or lower-paid short-term jobs in unstable and unsafe locations. If unchallenged now these same principles could be applied across the world service.

Turn up if you can on the picket each Thursday, send messages of support, or find out more information from the NUJ website

Here is the text of a letter given to BBC World Service staff, followed by the text of a Parliamentary question put by George Galloway to the Foreign Secretary.

To all Bectu and NUJ members protesting at Bush House

Dear sister/brother,

I’d like to offer you my full support in your campaign against the offshoring of BBC World Service jobs.

It’s not only the effect this will have on you, your families and the service, it is also the manner in which it is being done which is wholly objectionable.

Union representatives are being brushed aside and, as I understand it, whole departments being shut at a whim.

The BBC, as a public service broadcaster, ought to be investing more in the World Service, not slashing costs. The reputation of our country abroad is already rock-bottom, thanks to the disastrous foreign policy we have pursued. A well-funded, well-staffed, truly independent BBC is a greater investment in the security of our country than all the Land Rovers and Chinooks we have stationed in Afghanistan.

I wish you well in your campaign. And I am at your disposal.

In solidarity,

George Galloway
Respect MP for Bethnal Green & Bow

Early Day Motion put down by George Galloway

Outsourcing of BBC World Service and loss of editorial independence
This House is opposed to the outsourcing of BBC World Service jobs from the UK; is gravely concerned at the arrangement the BBC has entered into with the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), detailed in a letter from the Corporation’s South Asian Business Development Manager to PEMRA on 12 May 2007, which gives the Pakistan authority, an agency of a foreign state, “prior clearance for all contents and programmes” transmitted on behalf of the World Service by local, Pakistani stations; notes that a commitment to editorial independence is enshrined in the BBC’s charter; believes that the arrangement with PEMRA jeopardises that independence, and calls on the government to withhold its approval for this and similar arrangements.

Question put by George Galloway to the Foreign Secretary

To ask the Secretary of State FCO whether he is aware that the BBC World Service has made an arrangement with the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority through which the BBC World Service agreed to pre-censorship of its news bulletin contents before they are broadcast by its partner in Pakistan?

Did the he approve the following letter, written by Ms Helen Wilson on behalf of the BBC, before it was sent to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (an authority of a foreign government)

Ms. Helen Wilson, South Asian Business Development Manager of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), wrote to Mr. M. Noor Saghir Khan, PEMRA’s Executive Member, on 12 May 2007:

"In reply to PEMRA’s letter of 19.10.2006, a copy of which we left with you this morning, we are pleased to report that the BBC has now, we feel, met the conditions asked for by PEMRA to allow BBC provision of contents to FM partners in Pakistan:

(a) Prior clearance shall be obtained from PEMRA for all contents and programmes that are intended for broadcast on local FM radio stations

(b) BBC shall provide details of the mechanism whereby access to its programmes/contents will be provided to PEMRA prior to airing them, for consideration."

And if he will make a statement.

George Galloway MP

News and articles of interest

Here are some articles and news reports we think are worth looking at

Gaza: The Real Terrorists - Stuart Littlewood
The patience of all decent men must surely be exhausted.
Today's slaughter of innocents in Gaza, with at least 230 reported killed in raids on "Hamas terror operatives" (as the Israeli military put it), amounted to "a mass execution", said Hamas.
Can there now be any doubt who the real terrorists are?
The killing spree couldn't have happened without the tacit approval of America, Britain and the EU. The political pea-brains that direct the pro-Israel western alliance were partying, gorging themselves on Christmas fare or binge-shopping while this massacre of hungry women and children and their despairing menfolk in Gaza was being planned and executed.

Stench of Death Hangs Over Gaza - Ola Attallah
With thick clouds of smoke billowing into the sky and dead bodies littering into the streets, a stench of death rose from the ruins of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, December 27.
"Where are my sons?" screamed Um Ibrahim as she ran hysterically looking for her little kids.
She lives near a security compound Israeli planes pounded to the ground on Saturday.
"I don't know what happened to them," cried the bereaved mother.
Her neighbor Um Abed fell unconscious when she saw her son among the dead in the attacks.
At least 206 Palestinians were killed in massive Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
"The number of victims has reached 195 martyrs with more than 300 wounded, 120 of whom are critically hurt," said Moawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.
"The toll has gone up because of new Israeli raids and the discovery of several martyrs under the rubble."

Gaza massacres must spur us to action - Ali Abunimah
"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing." Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as images of Israel's latest massacres were broadcast around the world.
A short time earlier, US-supplied Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters dropped over 100 bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing at least 195 persons and injuring hundreds more. Many of these locations were police stations located, like police stations the world over, in the middle of civilian areas. The US government was one of the first to offer its support for Israel's attacks, and others will follow.

Face to face with the Taliban - Ghaith Abdul Ahad
Qomendan Hemmet sat cross-legged under a window of the mud-walled room. His shoulder, sunk in an old military jacket, rested against the wall and a radio antenna stuck out of his pocket. Next to him sat his deputy, wrapped in a big blanket, silent and sleepy. Around the room sat his men, their faces contorted by years of fighting and poverty, dressed in shalwar kameez and magazine pouches, eyes dark as the kohl lining them. Radios crackled, phones rang non-stop, and more fighters came, drank tea and left with orders.
"Salar is the new Falluja," declared Qomendan Hemmet emphatically. "The Americans and the Afghan army control the highway, and five metres on each side. The rest is our territory."

Communication Workers Union vows to fight any privatisation - Christine Buckley
The main postal union gave warning yesterday that it would fight any move to partly privatise Royal Mail as expectations grow that the organisation is facing a huge shake-up.
This week the Government is expected to publish an independent report that it commissioned into the postal service which will pave the way for an overhaul of Royal Mail.

Free Bush shoe-thrower, Iraqis urge - Aljazeera.net
Thousands of Iraqis have demonstrated in Baghdad's Sadr City in support of a journalist being held in custody after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the US president.
Muntazer al-Zaidi was detained for what the Iraqi government on Monday said was a "barbaric and ignominious act" during a news conference the previous day.