DND Report
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been one of the most popular soft power tools of the Western world to keep an eye on democracies, mostly in developing countries. Many critics of Global South claim that BBC’s pivotal role for Western powers in indoctrinating the self-serving narrative of True Democracy, Rule Based Order, Human Rights, Freedom of Expression, and Global Citizenship and promotes Western definition of democracy and rule-based order resulting in any other form of governance becoming anti-democratic and destructive.
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Fake narrative building helped the West in several regime changes, prompting Islamophobia, Russophobia, and now the idea of containing China. In the quest to serve the Western standards of human rights and freedom of expression sometimes BBC coined new dictions in the past but now writing new concepts of media ethics where hearsay has become a tool for what BBC wishes to establish against any country, regime, political party or in favor of the western cause. However, this game of exploiting its own written media ethics that have nothing to do with media ethics being taught globally, and due to this style of reporting the BBC is surely facing a credibility crisis. Now one can find BBC reports that can surely be considered “fake News” or “cooked News”.
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Moreover, the Gaza genocide exposed BBC’s double standards of the so-called protector of human rights, child rights, women’s rights, and freedom of expression because BBC plays the role of a blinded folded media covering the Gaza genocide by publishing only what Israel and Western hegemons wish to promote. The Western narrative of self-righteousness gives room to the idea that the only right way is their way, the rest is autocratic, inhuman, purging of human rights, etc. though in reality, Western-defined rule-based order is a prime source of disorder and chaos in the world. Gaza is the only exception rather the coverage of the Ukraine War is also based on new media ethics BBC is coming although they are in contradiction of laid down rules of reporting. In the last decade, BBC has become crazy and even facing a credibility crisis within the Western world. So BBC’s reporting about Pakistan is not an exception to its habit of creating ‘news’ out of hearsay and without citing credible sources.
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However, now it has become the new norm for BBC to target the Pakistan Army without having concrete facts, figures, and sources. In the last 10 days, two BBC reports cited ‘sources’ without naming them indicating that Pakistan is again at target of BBC as it had been in the past.
The reporting of foreign media, particularly BBC on the PTI November 24-26 protest confirmed without being present at the scene of the alleged firing of security forces on protesters of PTI on the night of November 26, 2024, foreign media reported that shotguns were used by the police, 45 or 55 (there is a difference of 10 numbers and they are talking about humans, not cucumbers) protesters were wounded and transferred to Poly Clinic Hospital and some of them were received dead at hospitals however, foreign media has no identities of these 45 or 55 persons and have no footage of their dead bodies nor their addresses from where they belonged and such reports provides just ‘sources requesting anonymity’ and eye ‘witnesses’ who are not ready to be mentioned and they who are faceless, nameless, and without any identity. BBC report had audio files of ‘eyewitnesses’ and claimed that hospital authorities were not sharing data and files of injured but same time claimed it had audios of some hospital authorities. The report also added that ‘some injured at hospitals denied to show their identities in fear of their arrest. According to the procedure, no injured person can be provided the facilities of operation and even first aid if the case is Medico Legal (gunshots, etc) and he is alive but does not want to share an identity. It is also claimed that postmortem of dead persons was not allowed and bodies were taken away by relatives but where these bodies were sent and buried has not been investigated by the foreign media.
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Now in another report, BBC claimed that some families of personnel of the Pakistan Army (retired/serving) talked to BBC claiming that they had been harassed and bullied for supporting former prime minister Imran Khan but the entire report is based on anonymity and anonymous figure having no name and no identity. Should the Pakistan government not ask BBC under what media ethics BBC is developing stories without naming so-called victims? In her report, the anchor said that BBC contacted several families belonging to the Pakistan Army who are under threat for supporting Imran Khan. However, not a single name of such a person was mentioned in the report
In 2019, BBC ran a story against the Pakistan Army having no credible and concrete proof and documentation which was challenged by the Pakistan Army as well as by the Pakistani government. According to complaint number 1(i)/20119-DGEP, lodged by the External Publicity Wing (EP Wing) of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of Pakistan, BBC even manipulated the response of Pakistan’s military media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) to a BBC email, and the BBC Correspondent ran a story base of cooked, loaded, fabricated and contested information.
The story titled “Uncovering Pakistan’s Secret Human Rights Abuses” dated June 2, 2019, was strongly challenged by the ISPR on the same day and then the Pakistan government also refuted the story and challenged the credibility of a story. The Pakistan government in its complaint added that public-funded organizations (e.g. BBC) should show responsibility to uphold objectives ordained in their charter and editorial guidelines but BBC’s story accused armed forces of killing innocent civilians without having a meeting with ISPR officials or taking their detailed viewpoint. BBC avoided getting any viewpoint of ISPR by telephoning or meeting any ISPR official anywhere in Pakistan; although, the ISPR Spokesman was available to national and international media.
In April 2024, BBC again ran a story targeting the Pakistan Army for manipulating a local incident in Bahawalnagar Punjab and it did not mention any proof and credible sources against Pakistan Army’s alleged highhandedness against the local police and later investigation confirmed that allegations leveled by BBC against Pakistan Army were unfounded, cooked and contrary to facts. Here is a question why does BBC target the Pakistan Army and cook stories without having any credible data and names of so-called victims and why does it establish the entire stories on ‘hearsay’? The answer may be found in the para mentioned below which has been reproduced from an article published in April 2024 titled ‘BBC reports Bahawalnagar Incident: Pakistan is the new target of Western rule-based Disorder’. The viewpoint given by the writer may help to understand what BBC does against the Pakistan Army by creating so-called stories out of nothing. The writer says:
“Those who understand the mechanism of Western propagation can understand that the Pakistan Army that is the sole instrument of Pakistan to protect the country of 225 million people is being treated as Western media has been treating Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, Fidel Castro, Nicolás Maduro and Vladimir Putin. All, according to Western media were/are human rights abusers, denying democracy and using excessive state power against the public. The real side of the story is that the majority of personalities mentioned above fought to save their countries from Western hegemony and disintegration. Some of them survived but most of them were purged with the fatal tool of Western media well before the launching hard power of the military”.