A British court upholds the lawsuit of a journalist who was “exposed to racism” at the BBC

Several cases have been filed over the past years related to racism against the BBC (Reuters)

The London Employment Court condemned the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and said it had “shockingly” failed in its duty in dealing with a complaint filed by a British journalist of Algerian origins against a colleague and his bosses at work after he accused them of racially persecuting him.

The court stated - in a ruling seen by Al Jazeera Net - that the British journalist of Iraqi origin, Safaa Jabara, used “insulting and unacceptable racist” statements against his colleague Ahmed Rawaba.

The referee noted that Jbara said about his colleague, “He always speaks with emotion. This is his nature because he is Algerian. It is the nature of the Bedouins. He is violent because his country has a lot of violence. He cannot speak calmly. This is their nature and culture.” Ahmed Rawaba considered it a direct racist insult.

The court explained that Jbara’s statement (which was contained in a written statement as part of an internal investigation) was actually “racial persecution,” which neither Ahmed Rawaba’s bosses nor the BBC’s human resources department had done anything to stop.

In his plea, Rawaba complained that he had been subjected for years to a campaign of harassment, incitement, and racism from his editor-in-chief, Muhammad Yahya, and his deputy, Mustafa Kazem. There were 13 complaints against him within the BBC, all of which were rejected for lack of evidence.

Rawaba has been working at the BBC for 12 years, and previously worked for major sites including Bloomberg, Dow Jones, and Al Jazeera.

Algerian journalist Ahmed Rawaba (social networking sites)

Repeated failure

In its ruling, the court indicated that BBC management had breached its duty in dealing with Rawaba’s complaint, as it did not take the required legal measures to address it at the institution level, and expressed “shock” at the corporation’s failure “on every occasion” to apply its approved definition of the concept of harassment.

The court stated that the officials who were entrusted with the task of examining the complaint overlooked its seriousness, were negligent in applying the BBC’s laws related to racism in the workplace, and were biased toward the complainant.

Racism issues are met with high sensitivity in Britain, a sensitivity that increases if the defendant works for a major institution such as the BBC, which places great emphasis on the concepts of equality and combating discrimination.

The case of journalist Rawaba comes at a time when the institution is witnessing profound changes that include downsizing in many departments, ending with the voluntary and compulsory layoff of hundreds of journalists, many of them in the Arabic department, whose traditional radio service was ended last year, not to mention the transfer of the bulk of digital production to Jordan.

The Rawaba case is one of a series of prominent cases related to racism that have rocked the BBC over the past 20 years.

In 2014, a British actress of Indian origin sued the corporation after she accused Top Gear broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson of using a racist insult on his program to refer to people of Asian descent. This was a case that was followed by another in which the broadcaster himself was involved, and ended with a final warning. To him from the BBC, which he eventually left.

Source: Al Jazeera