LONDON -- The BBC defended its decision to invite the leader of a white-supremacist party onto its leading political debate show, as protesters prepared to picket the broadcaster's studios during Thursday's taping.
British National Party chief Nick Griffin is due to appear on the show "Question Time."
Anti-racist protesters plan to picket the BBC studio while the show is recorded.
The whites-only BNP opposes immigration and claims to fight for "indigenous" Britons. Griffin has a conviction for racial hatred and has denied the Holocaust in the past.
The party has tried to shed its thuggish image and enter the political mainstream. Earlier this year it won two European parliament seats, gaining 6 percent of British votes in European polls.
The BBC says that as a publicly funded broadcaster it must cover all political parties that have a national presence. Director General Mark Thompson said excluding Griffin would amount to censorship.
Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Thompson said the BNP "has demonstrated a level of support that would normally lead to an occasional invitation to join the panel on 'Question Time.'"
The decision has divided Britain, but delighted the BNP, which is counting down the seconds until Thursday's broadcast on its Web site.
Cabinet minister Peter Hain, a former anti-apartheid activist, said the BBC was making a mistake.
"This is a racist party with fascist roots," Hain told GMTV television. "It exploits people's grievances and says it's all the fault of black people or Muslims or Jews just as over the ages racist and fascist parties have done that.
"It's very dangerous. Once you treat them as equal amongst the others they gain ground, we saw that in Nazi Germany."
Another Cabinet minister, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, is due to appear on Thursday's show alongside Griffin, opposition Conservative politician Sayeeda Warsi, opposition Liberal Democrat lawmaker Chris Huhne and writer Bonnie Greer.
© 2009 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
