[b]As-salâmu `alaykum dear brothers and sisters in Islam!

This is something important that needs to be done before 5pm THIS Friday (25th November)!

Very often, we listen or watch the news or documentaries relating to issues facing Muslims across the world and get frustrated if the presenter is an obviously biased journalist who is NOT going to say very nice things about Muslims and who is constantly distorting the facts or misleading the public. Usually, we switchover to another station, listen helplessly, smash the TV/radio, patiently listen whilst mumbling swearwords under our breath or get brainwashed into blindly agreeing with the [mis-] information.

The BBC has kindly offered to take the views of the public on one of those sticky issues that have plagued Muslims for half a century – the Palestine-Israel conflict. They want to know if viewers think their reports about this area are fair and balanced.

Now, why should we bother writing in? Well, we have in the UK [and in the USA] a pro-Israeli lobby who will activate their members to flood the BBC with mails telling them that the Palestinian are terrorists and that they should view more pro-Israeli material. So, it is imperative that we write into the BBC to ensure that their coverage is impartial. This way, whoever tunes into BBC will get a more correct picture of what is happening over there.

There are many things you can mention in your letter, such as asking why it is that a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians gets mentioned 50 million times on the news but the shooting of a 13 year old Palestinian school girl by Israeli solders gets mentioned ONCE and as a passing comment [as happened recently!].

MPAC has forward to us the following contact details. The first link may give you ideas about what to write:

Title: Bad News from Israel
(http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/sociology/units/media/israel.htm)
Authors: Greg Philo and Mike Berry, Glasgow University Media Group
Publisher: Pluto Press
Date: 2004
Write to:
Israeli-Palestinian Impartiality Review
(http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/rev_israelipalestinian.html)
BBC Governance Unit
Room 211, 35 Marylebone High Street
London, W1U 4AA

Or send an email : israelipalestinian.review@bbc.co.uk

But remember time is short and you must submit your comments by the 25th November, before 5pm!

Please write in yourselves and try to get some organisations to write in also.

May Allah give guidance and peace to all the Muslims of the world – âmîn!

Ma`as-salâma
Minhaj Rafiq[/b]