Write to Lisa Nandy: Stop the BBC's anti-Palestinian bias

On 10 August 2025, Israel killed journalist Anas al-Sharif alongside his four colleagues in a deliberate and targeted attack on a tent for journalists in Gaza City. Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers in the Gaza Strip in the past two years, and bans international journalists from entering Gaza to report on what is happening.

Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues were killed by Israel because they exposed the truth that the mainstream media, including the BBC, seeks to bury. Even whilst reporting his murder, the BBC gave space to Israel’s grotesque attempts to smear al-Sharif’s reputation and justify the assassination of journalists.

Yet, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy still refuses to address the British media’s systematic anti-Palestinian bias which manufactures consent for Israel’s escalating genocide against the Palestinian people. She has consistently used her position to pressure the BBC to suppress Palestinian voices, actively participating in wider attempts to foment a moral panic about artists and cultural figures using their platforms to speak up for the Palestinian people.

Write to Lisa Nandy today to demand that she stops shielding Israel from accountability and takes action to end the anti-Palestinian bias across mainstream media in Britain, including at the BBC.

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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW231143017 BCX0"><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0">Dear Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, </div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0">I am writing to express my outrage at your failure to address the systematic anti-Palestinian bias across mainstream media in Britain, including at the BBC, which continues to privilege and promote pro-Israel voices across its platforms, whilst delegitimising and excluding Palestinians reporting on and living through a genocide. </div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0">On 10 August 2025, Israel killed journalist Anas al-Sharif, alongside his four colleagues, correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa, in a deliberate and targeted attack on a tent for journalists in Gaza City. Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers in the Gaza Strip in the past two years. Israel also bans international journalists from entering Gaza to report on what is happening. UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan has described this as “a pattern the Israelis have used over the last 20 months...to assassinate and silence independent reporting on Gaza...they are running a carefully planned program of assassination”. Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues were killed by Israel because they exposed the truth that the BBC seeks to bury.   </div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0">Rather than amplifying this work, many media platforms are complicit in Israel’s project to erase Palestinians, their current lived reality, history and culture, by omitting context, facts and the voices and stories of Palestinians living through a genocide. Palestinian journalists, health workers and human rights organisations all have significant expertise to contribute, and yet they find themselves excluded or maligned in British media, amounting to a pattern of anti-Palestinian racism.  </div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0">In June 2025, the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) published a report which analysed more than 35,000 pieces of BBC content, finding that Israeli deaths are given 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinians, and that the BBC consistently harangues Palestinian guests, or silences them completely. Whilst you, as Culture Secretary, are yet to respond to its clear findings and recommendations, they have been endorsed by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, Alistair Campbell and Baroness Warsi. </div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0">Moreover, it is utterly shameful that it is not these findings, nor the BBC’s cancellation of “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” featuring Palestinian doctors and health workers testifying to their experiences in Gaza saving lives in the midst Israel’s genocide - which was later shown by Channel 4 - that have led you to describe a “problem of leadership” at the BBC. Instead, this has arisen from its airing of the documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone”, which represented one of the very few occasions where the BBC has allowed Palestinians to speak the truth of their experiences.  </div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0">These are not isolated incidents. They demonstrate the ways in which you have used your position to pressure the BBC to further suppress Palestinian voices, actively participating in wider attempts to foment a moral panic about artists and cultural figures using their platforms to speak up for the Palestinian people, and against violations of international law. Palestinians have the right to be heard, and British people have the right, guaranteed by Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, to “receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority”. As Culture Secretary you have a responsibility to prevent such interference across culture, arts, media, sport, tourism and civil society in Britain. </div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0">In the context of all of these concerns I demand that as a matter of urgency you: </div><div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW266670976 BCX0"><ol><li class="Paragraph SCXW266670976 BCX0">Take active steps to address the systematic deployment of anti-Palestinian racism to silence Palestinian voices, and those standing in solidarity with them, across culture, arts, media, sport, tourism and civil society;  </li><li class="Paragraph SCXW266670976 BCX0">Address the CfMM report and take active steps to ensure the BBC implements its recommendations to end its anti-Palestinian bias;</li><li class="Paragraph SCXW266670976 BCX0">Meet with the British Palestinian Committee to discuss the experiences of the British Palestinian community in relation to all of the above;  </li></ol></div></div>

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Write to Lisa Nandy: Stop the BBC's anti-Palestinian bias