'Pull the plug' on BNP broadcast

Pull the plug on the fascist BNP's party election broadcast
Urgent protest
Thursday 21 April, from 4.30pm
Outside Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London (nearest tube Oxford Circus)


Unite Against Fascism is organising a protest outside the BBC against the British National Party's party election broadcast. The BNP will be standing candidates in 118 constituencies at the general election. They chose this amount of constituencies in order to qualify for free publicity including the party political broadcasts and free mailshots. BBC1 and BBC2 are set to transmit the first party election broadcast by the BNP on Thursday 21st April. The BBC is not obliged under the law to transmit the broadcast. There are precedents for restrictions being put on the BNP - previous broadcasts have been stopped entirely or subject to severe restriction due to their offensive content.


Gerry Morrissey, Assistant General Secretary of BECTU said: "BECTU is proud to support the 'Pull the Plug' campaign as it is our view that the BNP's policies are an affront to democracy and should have no place in a decent society."


Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain said: "The BNP should not be given a platform on our broadcast media to spread their racist and Islamophobic poison. We call on our broadcasters to be mindful of the divisive agenda of the BNP and to deny them the opportunity to pollute any more minds."


Sabby Dhalu, joint Secretary of UAF said: "We are concerned that the fascist and racist BNP is to be awarded a free opportunity to disseminate its race hatred in a party political broadcast. The BNP is attempting to benefit from rules that govern our electoral system, with the sole aim of spreading their
race hate into millions of homes through television and radio broadcasts and election literature distributed free of charge. We believe the BNP is not a legitimate party: no other party's leaders are currently facing charges for incitement to racial hatred. Wherever the BNP have a presence, racist
attacks increase. We strongly object to the contributions of licence fee payers being used to accommodate a political group who stands fully opposed to freedom of speech, association and liberty and wishes to use this slot to peddle racism We call on the broadcasters, public and independent, to pull the plug on the BNP."


Weyman Bennett, Joint Secretary of UAF said: "The BNP is a Nazi party, they follow the politics of Adolf Hitler. Like Hitler they plan to use the platform of the political broadcasts to spread lies and encourage racial hatred and remove democracy from us all. We must unite against this resurgence in fascist politics."
 

April 2005