Govt lodges protest with BBC over misreporting about alleged HR abuse in tribal areas

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has formally lodged a protest with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) over misreporting on alleged human rights’ abuses in the country’s tribal areas, terming the news ‘baseless and one-sided.’

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting rebuffed the BBC’s ‘Uncovering Pakistan’s secret human rights abuse’ in a dossier and formally handed it over to a representative of the Corporation, a 19-page document (dossier) shared with media here on Tuesday said.

The story published by the BBC on June 2 in its English and Urdu versions was against the journalistic norms and portrayed fabrication, the letter of complaint said.

The letter said the news lacking the version of the relevant stakeholders had accused the country for so-called human rights violations without any credible evidence, pointing out that it was against the BBC's editorial policy.

The report’s content presented judgmental expression and reflected biasness which was in fact contrary to journalism ethics.

The government of Pakistan in the dossier sought an appropriate action against the culprits and apology from BBC, besides the removal of the defamatory story from its website.

The dossier said the country retained a right to initiate a legal proceeding against the BBC in Britain or Pakistan if an action was not taken against those who were responsible for publication of the misleading story.

It hoped that the corporation would exercise restraint in future regarding the publication of unauthentic news against Pakistan.

The government is also planning to send a letter of complaint to British media regulatory authority, while Pakistan’s Press Attaché in Britain would also raise the issue with Office of Communication and the BBC.

The dossier said the rightful action of the state’s institutions was labeled as terrorism to misled the world.

Had the BBC published such story when British army was in Iraq and Afghanistan, the government questioned.

Pakistan army had never accepted the murder of Adnan Rasheed, it added.

The journalist, who published the story, had never requested for his visit to Wazirastan, the letter said and pointed out that various representatives of BBC had visited Pakistan’s tribal areas 14 times.

The partiality of the journalist could be gauged through his official twitter account whereas its clippings had also been attached with the dossier.