BBC Asks: Should gay people be killed?

Stephen Brook

guardian.co.uk

Thursday 17 December 2009 11.54 GMT

The journalists' union has attacked the BBC over the World Service online talkboard discussion that asked if homosexuals should be executed, saying the post was "overly sensationalist" and could encourage hatred of gay people.

After an emergency meeting of the World Service news and current affairs chapel of the National Union of Journalists late yesterday, the union issued a statement expressing concern about yesterday's talkboard post.

The post, which asked website users "Should homosexuals face execution?, was designed to generate debate ahead of interactive programme Africa Have Your Say, which aired yesterday at 4pm and looked at proposed anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda.

"The chapel is concerned the question posed to its listeners by the BBC African Service programme, Africa Have Your Say, on the topic of 'Should homosexuals face execution' was overly sensationalist, fell short of BBC editorial values and could lay the BBC open to the charge that it was encouraging hatred of gay people," the NUJ chapel resolution stated.

"The chapel believes it was absolutely right to discuss the issue of attitudes in Africa towards homosexuality but not in this way."

Mike Workman, father of the NUJ World Service news and current affairs chapel, said he was "deeply concerned" about the programme.

"At times the programme seemed to give moral equivalence to the totally contradictory ideas of killing gay people and gay rights," Workman added. "To be blunt, the producers would never have run a programme called "Should Tutsis face execution?"

Workman also criticised the "lack of appropriate moderation" of the programme's Facebook website, which included comments such as: "Homosexuality belongs to the forces of satan. They are the agents of satan bent on taken over the world [sic]."

BBC Pride, the gay and lesbian staff group, offered some support to the programme-makers, saying that the corporation must encourage free and open debate but that the "unfortunate way in which the initial question was worded risked causing unnecessary upset".

"We recognise the very strong feelings that this discussion board provoked in its initial form, and hope that it will draw attention to the many human rights violations currently taking place against LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] people in Uganda and other countries around the world," the group said in a statement.....

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