MEMBERS of a pro-Palestine rally marched to the BBC's offices in Edinburgh to call out the broadcaster's "complicity in the genocide in Gaza" and its "lack of impartiality" in covering the conflict.
The demonstration, organised by the Edinburgh Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee, took place on Saturday.
The group gathered to accuse the broadcaster of a lack of impartiality and "adherence to their own editorial guidelines".
Chants of "BBC, you can't hide, you're supporting genocide", "BBC shame shame, every martyr has a name", "Say hey, hey, ho, ho, Raffi Berg has got to go", and "Every time the media lies, a neighbourhood in Gaza dies," could be heard.
A former BBC journalist claimed Berg's job, the BBC online Middle East editor, “ is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel” in an investigation by Owen Jones last year.
In one speech, demonstrator Sundus Saeed said: "The very essence of journalism is to tell the truth. The BBC are supposed to educate and inform. To hold the people in power to account. But they do the opposite.
"The main weapon of the coloniser is to dehumanise the colonised. And the dehumanisation of Muslims and people of colour has been taught.
"The dehumanisation of Palestinians has been a gradual process which has been facilitated by the media, and the BBC who have controlled the narrative for decades."
They added: "Everyone needs to rise up, to continue to post on social media, to continue to document the testimony of Palestinians in replacement of the propaganda that the mainstream media including the BBC produces."
In November last year, more than 100 BBC employees accused the corporation of providing favourable coverage toward Israel and called on the broadcaster to “recommit to fairness, accuracy, and impartiality” over its reporting on Gaza.
In a letter sent to Tim Davie, signed by more than 230 members of the media industry, including 101 anonymous BBC staff, the corporation was criticised for failing its own editorial standards by lacking “consistently fair and accurate evidence-based journalism in its coverage of Gaza”.
