Dear Ms Dawson,
As whoever has been informed of
your reality show against Greeks, I am utterly appaled by the expression of
hate, racism and practices of racial incitement of the masses in which case
whoever is watching that racistic show (Go Greek for a week).
We are negatively surprised about
how Broadcasting Regulations are not applicable to your channel and of course
the reasons the authorities have not tackled a serious issue like this until
now raise legitimate questions.
Your legal services should have
advised you and be aware that under the Law of the
United Kingdom, “incitement to racial hatred” was established as an
offence by the provisions of §§ 17-29 of the Public Order Act 1986.
It was first established as a criminal offence in the Race Relations Act 1976.
TheCriminal Justice and Public
Order Act 1994 made publication of material that incited racial hatred an arrestable
offence.
This offence refers to:
* deliberately provoking hatred of a racial
group
* distributing racist material to the public
* making inflammatory public speeches
* creating racist websites on the Internet
* inciting inflammatory rumours about an
individual or an ethnic group, for the purpose of spreading racial discontent.”
Also, under Communications Act
2003, “Section 326: Duty to observe fairness code” :
“(7) Condition F is that the way
in which the product, service or trade mark, or the reference to it, is
included in the programme by way of product placement does not-
(a)
prejudice respect for human dignity;
(b) promote discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, nationality,
religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation;
(c) encourage behaviour prejudicial to health or safety;
(d) encourage behaviour grossly prejudicial to the protection of the
environment;
(e) cause physical or moral detriment to persons under the age of eighteen;
(f) directly encourage such persons to persuade their parents or others to
purchase or rent goods or services;
(g) exploit the trust of such persons in parents, teachers or others; or
(h) unreasonably show such persons in dangerous situations. “
May we add your channel is also
violating the European Convention on Human Rights Article 14:
“Article 14 contains a prohibition of discrimination. This prohibition is broad
in some ways, and narrow in others. It is broad in that it prohibits
discrimination under a potentially unlimited number of grounds. While the
article specifically prohibits discrimination based on “sex, race, colour,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
association with a national minority, property, birth or other status”,
the last of these allows the court to extend to Article 14 protection to other
grounds not specifically mentioned such as has been done regarding
discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation.”
“Protocol
12 extends this prohibition to cover discrimination in any legal right, even
when that legal right is not protected under the Convention, so long as it is
provided for in national law”.
Furthermore,
your channel is violating EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive
(Directive 2010/13/EU) Section: “Provisions applicable to all audiovisual media
services. Article 6: Member States shall ensure by appropriate means
that audiovisual media services provided by media service providers under their
jurisdiction do not contain any incitement to hatred based on race, sex,
religion or nationality.”
All of
the aforementioned is part of The Ofcom Broadcasting Code as you may happen to
be aware of.
It is with regret, we notice that your channel is bluntly
violating the laws of content standards for television and continues with breaches of conditions
imposed under the EU Directives.
May we remind you that a considerable number of UK Citizens
are of Greek origin, let alone the Greek citizens who live, work, study, pay
taxes and TV Licence in the UK.
Is this really what you mean when you write
under corporate responsibility in your site: “We aim to continue to play a
responsible role in the community.” ?
Is this how “The aim of our Corporate Responsibility (CR)
strategy is to fulfil” y”our public service remit in a responsible
manner.”?
Is this
how you plan to “achieve” y”our mission” and “continue to develop” y”our
strategy around” the respective impact area of your corporate responsibility?
WE EXPECT CHANNEL4 TO APOLOGISE On Air and IN WRITING for
the racistic show (Go Greek for a week) targeting Greece and fueling
anger and hate towards Greeks AND IMMEDIATELY STOP the broadcasting of
this reality show that makes one remember the times of McCarthyism and
Goebbelism.
Should this propaganda hate show
continue, legal actions are to be expected from our legal team.
May we thank you for your cooperation.
Regards
C. PRINARI
[Have a look at our response – http://www.antibaro.gr/node/3475]