INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The BBC has agreed to pay £30,000 in damages to a British Bangladeshi Labour councillor after it mixed her up with Apsana Begum in a news
item about the MP facing housing fraud charges.Pictures of Liza Begum at an event to launch Labour’s 2019 race and faith manifesto were
broadcast on BBC London News during an exchange on 29 October 2020, in which the BBC London political correspondent said: “This is Apsana
Begum … she faces three charges of dishonesty.”Although the correspondent said that Apsana Begum, who is also British Bangladeshi, had
vigorously contested the “false and malicious allegations” – she would later be acquitted – the BBC admitted that the meaning of the
BBC One broadcast was that “there are reasonable grounds to suspect that [Liza Begum] had engaged in housing fraud”.A statement read out
in court on Tuesday said: “The misidentification caused Ms Begum particular distress because it seemed another example of the BBC, and the
media generally, misidentifying BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) people, which fed into racist tropes.“She was particularly
distressed that the confusion was of two women of colour appearing at a race and faith event, and that nobody in the BBC corrected it before
the film of her was broadcast.”Begum first contacted the BBC on the night of the offending broadcast and an apology was broadcast in the
She then began an action for defamation, also requesting that the BBC publicly commit to new processes to prevent the misidentification of
BAME people.The letter of claim, sent by her solicitors Rahman Lowe, cited previous examples of the BBC confusing the black Labour MPs Dawn
Butler and Marsha de Cordova, and the black basketball players LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.The BBC’s response to the letter of claim
said: “Here, the error arose because the video in question was incorrectly labelled as identifying your client because she and Apsana
Begum appeared at the same Labour event where the recording in question was captured
That was what caused the original confusion in the archive
That does not make the mistake ‘racist’ as your client has claimed online.”The corporation also said that the letter of claim had
“cite[d] examples of misidentifications by other media organisations which have nothing to do with race or background”.Begum said on
Tuesday: “It is right that the BBC has publicly apologised for its mistake, but time and time again we have seen the BBC and other
organisations make the same mistake with people of colour
It is unacceptable that the media make such errors and it reflects a deep-seated notion that all people of colour look the same.“The high
court heard how the BBC refused to make a public commitment to put processes in place to guard against this in future
I hope that the BBC will now implement processes to ensure mistakes such as this do not happen again and improve diversity within the
organisation.”The court heard that the BBC said it could not report to Begum on processes that it would put in place to guard against
misidentification because it would be inconsistent with its independence and accountability to its regulator.Begum was elected to
Westminster council, central London last year, having previously been a Labour party activist and community and social housing campaigner.A
BBC spokesperson said: “We are very sorry for the distress this has caused
It was a genuine mistake during a live programme that arose from archive footage being incorrectly labelled in our system
We apologised on air at the first opportunity and took immediate steps to correct our system
We recognise we must do better so have taken steps internally to avoid similar situations occurring.”
This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com
