The BBC has been accused of attempting a ‘cover-up’ over a Gaza documentary narrated by the son of a Hamas minister – after The Mail on Sunday obtained a copy of its contract with the film’s producers.
Amid a political storm over its alleged anti-Israel bias, the corporation was forced to apologise after it emerged that Abdullah – the child narrator on BBC2’s Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone – was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy agriculture minister.
The BBC had initially tried to defend Monday’s programme, and pointed the finger at the London-based production company Hoyo Films for not telling it about the Hamas link.
It said: ‘We followed all of our usual compliance procedures in the making of this film, but we had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we complied and then broadcast the finished film.’
However, the contract between the BBC and Hoyo suggests that the corporation had direct and regular involvement with the documentary, with one section reading: ‘We will address editorial compliance issues as they arise by having regular updates and phone calls with the commissioning editor, and engaged with “safeguarding” issues by consulting parents.’
Another section in the paperwork says: ‘Permission will be sought from the parents’ guardians every time we film with them…
‘The producers will act and work as we would in the UK.
‘Wherever possible, we will not film with unaccompanied children. We will seek permission from parents, guardians or the NGO responsible for the child.’
The documentary, Gaza: How To Survive a War Zone, was narrated by 14-year-old English-speaking boy named Abdullah, who is listed in the film’s credits under his full name, Abdullah Al-Yazouri (pictured)
It has since emerged that the child narrator is the son of Ayman Alyazouri (pictured), who has worked as Hamas’s deputy agriculture minister
The BBC had initially tried to defend Monday’s programme, and pointed the finger at the London-based production company Hoyo Films for not telling it about the Hamas link
After 45 prominent Jewish figures from the TV, film and media sectors called for the broadcast to be taken down, it was removed from BBC iPlayer.
The corporation said that it was taking the measure while it carried out ‘further due diligence with the production company’.
Last night, Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC Television, said: ‘Having been shown these documents by The Mail on Sunday, it is very clear that the BBC was fully responsible and in control of this documentary.
‘Their attempts to shift responsibility to outside producers should not be accepted and indeed mislead licence-fee payers further – this looks like nothing more than an attempted cover-up.’
Mr Cohen added: ‘The fact that this documentary features the son of a Hamas leader and a child previously manipulated for Hamas propaganda means that the BBC has serious questions to answer on both the propaganda bias of this documentary and whether the Hamas families of the children were able to influence the output.’
The BBC has been accused of attempting a ‘cover-up’ over the documentary
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she would discuss the programme with the director-general of the BBC as part of talks about its coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Last year, a Mail on Sunday investigation into the BBC’s coverage of the conflict revealed anti-Jewish posts made by several BBC Arabic reporters, and unearthed anti-Semitic slurs made by doctors quoted in a report which claimed Israeli troops tortured medics in Gaza.
MPs demanded an inquiry after it emerged that the corporation had been warned 18 months earlier that some of its journalists had made anti-Israel comments online – yet still assigned them to report on the conflict.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘We’ve got nothing further to add to the statement we made when taking the film down. We are clear we had full editorial control.’