BBC forced to removed slur about Jesus from its website
By JASON LEWIS
Last updated at 22:17pm on 18th August 2007
The BBC has been forced to remove statements from its website referring to Jesus as a 'bastard'.
It is the latest in a string of offensive comments that BBC editors have allowed members of the public to post.
The remarks have been allowed to remain for weeks, despite complaints from religious groups.
It has led to claims that the BBC is allowing its output to be hijacked by extremists while censoring anti-Muslim sentiment.
The remarks about Jesus were left as part of a discussion of the death of the Archbishop of Paris.
The debate had descended into an argument about the merits of Christians, Jews and Muslims when a writer, known as 'colonelartist', posted: "Are you a christian? You do know that jesus had to hide all his short life he lived in those promised land because his tribesmen used to call him fatherless, ridiculed him for being a B-A-S-T-A-R-D...'
He added: "Jesus...was also persecuted because the jews would never accept as their Messiah a person whose father was missing...'
The comments were allowed to remain for a week despite complaints. But after The Mail on Sunday contacted senior BBC officials, they were deleted.
Colonelartist is a regular contributor to the BBC site.
He has also written: "The jews in much remembered concentration camps had even better qualitity of freedom that these palestinians have...'
One website user wanted to see if BBC editors were allowing these offensive remarks to remain while blocking others. He wrote: "No one can surpass the Muslims for denial of their role in Terrorism and Suicide bombing." The remarks were almost immediately deleted.
The BBC has also been criticised for allowing allegedly anti-Semitic posts from a contributor called "Iron Naz'.
In a message left on the site for more than a month, Iron Naz says: "Zionism is a racist ideology where jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths. This is found in the Talmud...which allows jews to lie as long as its to non-jews."
The remarks brought complaints from the Board of Deputies, the organisation that represents Britain's Jews and its Community Security Trust. They say the post draws on a discredited 19th Century text, the Talmud Unmasked, which is still distributed by neo-Nazi booksellers.
However, the BBC said the remarks did not merit removal.
A spokesman said posts were taken down if they were considered likely to 'disrupt, provoke attack or offend others or are considered racist, homophobic, sexually explicit or otherwise objectionable'.
The Board of Deputies intends to pursue its complaints. Mark Gardiner, of the Community Security Trust, said: "The BBC obviously no longer recognises anti-Semitism. The BBC is a public body, funded by the British taxpayer. It has legal obligations."
Last night the Church of England also criticised the management of the BBC discussion sites noting that "voices of reason, compassion and charity seem to get little look-in".
A spokesman said: "Discussion - including robustly critical discussion - of any faith's doctrines and practices is an important feature of civilised discourse.
"But deliberately or recklessly offensive denigration of those doctrines and practices is unacceptable."
BBC forced to removed slur about Jesus from its website
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