Calls for BBC to apologise for ‘offensive’ Shoah article

Calls have been made for the BBC to apologise for claiming the Holocaust is a “sensitive topic for many Muslims”.

The Board of Deputies and Muslim anti-racism charity Tell MAMA UK criticised the broadcaster for the “gratuitous line – offensive to both Muslims and Jews”, which has now been removed, from an article posted on Wednesday.

The remark appeared in an article about islamaphobic abuse being directed at girls during a Holocaust education trip in Poland. It read: “The Holocaust is a sensitive topic for many Muslims because Jewish survivors settled in British-mandate Palestine, on land which later became the State of Israel”.

Responding to the article,  Marie van der Zyl, Vice-President of the Board and Tell MAMA founder Fiyaz Mughal, said: “In a story about Muslim schoolgirls suffering racism as they learn about the Holocaust, why have the BBC included the gratuitous line – offensive to both Muslims and Jews – that ‘the Holocaust is a sensitive topic for many Muslims’? Together, we call on the BBC to delete the offending passage and apologise.”

The article claims that Muslim girls from a school in Berlin were abused and spat at during a visit to the Polish town of Lublin, where they were learning about the Holocaust.