1. BBC Writes: The story started when a pirate radio station DJ aired allegations that a black teenage girl had been gang raped by Asian men in a beauty shop near to the Lozells area.
The Truth: The story started long before the community radio broadcast. Details of the alleged assault was rife throughout the Birmingham community. There were several stories going around that this was not an isolated incident and had in fact happened twice before with a shop in Soho St named by several reliable sources. Community resentment grew after it was apparent there was a media whitewash on this story with not one national media institution choosing to even report the allegations. Many believed the BBC as a public broadcaster had a responsibility to cover local news affecting the African British community. When it became apparent this would not occur several community radio stations in Birmingham stepped forward with the allegations.
2. BBC Writes: Anger mounted and a public picket outside followed. By the weekend, with no victim having come forward, the mood was sufficiently heated for the police to try to start calming things down.
The Truth: This marks the beginning of the BBC’s deliberate misrepresentation of the story. Anger mounting barely begins to detail the series of event that took place of which the BBC were fully aware. On Tuesday 18 October over three hundred African people held a peaceful protest in Birmingham to specifically raise public and media awareness of the child gang rape allegations. This protest was reported by the BBC as people having ‘stopped traffic’ by one hundred and fifty people with no substantive details about the protest background and intent to raise national awareness about the alleged assault.
3. BBC Writes: But by Saturday night, violence hit Lozells' streets as gangs took matters into their own hands. Young black men attacked Asian businesses; Asian youths attacked the black men; both gangs had a go at the police.
The Truth: BBC reporting has sought to portray the African community as the aggressor but this is untrue. Midday on Saturday 22 October, there were two events staged in both Birmingham and London to launch the Campaign for Silent Victims. At the Birmingham event there was mass anger when the police told community leaders in a public meeting that five people brought in for questioning for a similar alleged case of sexual assault had to be let go. It is said by many that an African woman felt emboldened to come forward after hearing of community support for the alleged child gang rape and made the official complaint despite the incident occurring some months ago. This part of the story however remains an unconfirmed rumour. At the same meeting Police said they had conducted forensic evidence at the scene of the alleged rape but they couldn’t come release information into the public domain because they feared it would prejudice any potential legal proceedings. Both events in Birmingham and London were peaceful and ended without violent incident.
After crowds of over a thousand peaceful protesters had left the vicinity to go home large crowds begun gathering on the streets of Lozell. A group of hooded Asian youths launched an attack on a Birmingham African Caribbean community centre threatening the elders inside whilst Police in riot gear looked on. There were approximately fifty African people on one side who were cordoned of by police, whilst on the other side there was one hundred and fifty Asians some armed with baseball bats throwing bottles and bricks at both the Police and African community. As word spread around on the community grapevine about what was happening a group of Angry African youths gathered to defend the property at which point the Police got involved and attempted to disperse both groups.
Brother Anthony Mohammed a community leader from the Nation of Islam, Birmingham went to speak to the Asian youth against police warnings that they could not guarantee his safety. He spoke to some of the Asians who told him that they were angry because they were all being tarred with the same brush and basically being accused of not caring or wanting to see justice done. Many warned him that if the ‘black’ community want to bring it on then they were willing to die.
Bro. Anthony Mohammed went back with this message and encouraged the African people present to disperse. When a group of twenty refused to go home he told them that if they are still here then they must be looking for trouble.
As the night went on we received reports of gangs of Asians roaming in cars and attacking vulnerable African people walking the street, some African youths are said to have mounted a counter attack and a small minority in both groups sought to exploit the opportunity to raid Asian businesses. Some believe this was an attempt to apportion blame onto the African community. At least one Asian business is confirmed by several sources to have been attacked by a group of Asian youths.
Residents' fear during violence
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4368662.stm
4. BBC Writes: Who killed Isiah Young-Sam, a city council IT analyst returning home from the cinema, remains unclear as the police have not publicly confirmed the ethnicity of the mob behind the vicious stabbing.
The Truth: This stance is similar to media reporting in 1993 when Stephen Lawrence, 18, was fatally stabbed by a gang of anti-African European youths at a bus stop in south-east London and national media organisations used Police ineptitude as an excuse to hide behind instead of simply publishing the truth. The entire nation knows that the innocent Isiah Young-Sam was murdered by a mob of (racist) anti-African Asians. The BBC is totally capable of inserting the word ‘allegedly’ if it were interested in reporting the complete and unbiased facts. Sadly this does not appear to be on their agenda.
5. BBC Writes: After a second night of trouble saw more tension (and a fatal shooting that may or may not be related), the police swamped Lozells on Monday to stamp out the trouble.
The Truth: The BBC has repeatedly made the link between the shooting, the African British community and the history of armed criminality in Birmingham. In particular choosing to exploit the tragic deaths of the 2003 murder of Charlene Ellis, 18, and Letisha Shakespeare, 17 whilst highlighting a totally unrelated story of an female Asian shopkeeper who was attacked with a machete by an African man in 2002. The inserted caveat ‘may or not be related’ is wholly disingenuous when the BBC has already gone out of its way to assert that the African community is guilty for all violent offences in the area.
Community with history of tension
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4368994.stm
6. BBC Writes: Warren G, the DJ who aired the rape allegation, has kept quiet. The woman screening his calls told the BBC News website that he had only sought to do the right thing.
The Truth: The blatant attempt to now blame community presenter Warren G and other community radio stations for reporting a story which the BBC should have broken is nothing short of contemptuous and immoral. This new course of action does not represent high standards of journalistic integrity and is in fact BBC executives abusing public trust to launch a dirty smear campaign solely to avert attention from their own culpability in the murder of innocent African victim, Isiah Young-Sam.
7. BBC Writes: Ajaib Hussein, the owner of the beauty parlour at the centre of the allegation, has denied the claims and said his business is the victim of a plot by rivals.
'Rivals started riot rape rumour'
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4373494.stm
The Truth: In previous media interviews Asian Rape suspect Ajaib Hussein blamed the child gang rape allegations on 'pirate' radio stations and claimed that his staff and shop were the target of an ‘unbelievable public campaign’ initiated by people who ‘can't stand the fact that an Asian man is selling African products’. The BBC is now reporting that he claims that his business is the victim of a plot by rivals but fails to name who he suspects these rivals to be. Consistent?
8. BBC Writes: On Lozells Road, you see the economic success of Asian communities. Shop after shop - grocers, chippies, sari sellers and newsagents - stand testament to a community's ability to pull together. While this is by no means an exclusively Muslim area, a new mosque is a symbol of success.
The Truth: Whilst this may be true the media attempts to conflate two totally separate issues are deliberately misleading. The Campaign for Silent Victims was just that and only that. A campaign to increase media coverage for the silent victims of crimes perpetrated against African people such as the alleged child gang rape victim and now the innocent Isiah Young-Sam who was murdered by an Asian mob for being African.
9. BBC Writes: Guffraz Farid, manager of a large grocery in Lozells, said that the violence had hit takings in one of his busiest weeks of the year - the run-up to the Muslim festival of Eid. The local traders' association had agreed to shut their stores for an hour on Saturday as a mark of solidarity. Then, he said, a gang of young black men started threatening shop keepers and that, in turn, had prompted young Asian men to go out on to the streets.
The Truth: Did Farid make an official complaint to the Police, where is the Police statement confirming his account of events? Were any arrests made? How many were in this gang of young ‘black’ men? Is the BBC reporting this accusations as allegation or fact?
10. BBC writes: One West Midlands race equality official, Derek Campbell, told the BBC that some black people were saying they had been "re-colonised" by successful Asian communities, an allusion to slavery and empire.
The Truth: Who in the African British community made this alleged ‘allusion to slavery and empire’. Why was it necessary for the BBC to include this prejudicial statement in an article which is clearly designed to both demonise the African British community as aggressive, violent people seeking to use the ‘race’ card, when the whole issue has always been about seeking truth and justice. |
Is the BBC reporting of this story both impartial and truthful?
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