Trade union chief and SDLP MP set to speak at Belfast rally against BBC 'complicity' in Israeli 'genocidal assault'

The demonstration is slated to involve thousands of people and to be addressed by Gerry Murphy, assistant secretary-general of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which helped co-ordinate the mass January 18 walk-out.

It will also see speakers from the SDLP, People Before Profit, and Sinn Fein, and has been called by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which has been behind most of the major demonstrations on the island since October 7.

It starts with a march at noon from Writer's Square next to St Anne's Church of Ireland Cathedral, goes up Royal Avenue, around the City Hall and up Bedford Street to BBC HQ.

No conditions have been imposed by the Parades Commission.

The rally has been called in part to protest the killing of journalists by the Israeli forces; the promo material for the rally says 117 had died in little over 100 days – "more than the total amount of journalists killed during World War II and more than the 63 journalists killed in the 20 years of the Vietnam War".

The group said: "This reflects the unprecedented loss of life in Gaza to date. In just three months 30,000 Palestinians are dead, missing or buried under the rubble, 1.9 million people have been displaced, and nearly 70,000 housing units destroyed.

"And yet where are the headlines? Where are the interviews with Palestinians? Where are the searching questions about the Israeli assault on Gaza and on the freedom of the press? Where are the discussions on local and national news channels?

"[The rally] is to highlight the bias of the BBC editorial stance, which in the face of this genocidal onslaught, amounts to complicity."

It says thousands are expected to attend, and that it is backed by groups including Trades Union Friends of Palestine, Artists against Genocide, and Jews for Palestine Ireland, with speeches due from SDLP MP Claire Hanna, People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll, and councillor Ryan Carlin of Sinn Fein.

Asked for a response, the BBC directed the News Letter to a statement made in late October by Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News, in which she said: "We have faced criticism and complaints that we are biased both for and against Israel, and for and against the Palestinians.

"We cannot afford to simply say that if both sides are criticising us, we’re getting things right."That isn’t good enough for the BBC or for our audiences. At the BBC we hold ourselves to a higher standard and rightly challenge ourselves to listen to our critics and consider what changes to make where we think that criticism is fair."

It also referred the News Letter to another statement, made by the corporation nine days after the hostilities began, in which it said: "BBC News has provided our global audiences with coverage and first-hand testimony of the atrocities committed by Hamas, and the suffering in Gaza.

"We have made clear the devastating human cost to civilians living in Israel and Gaza, and the unprecedented nature of what has happened.

"The huge loss of civilian life on both sides makes this a shocking and difficult story to cover…

"Careful consideration has been given to all aspects of our coverage to ensure that we report on developments accurately and with due impartiality in line with the BBC Editorial Guidelines, which are publicly available."