31 January 2013

BBC accused of 'extraordinary' censorship after cutting honour-killing references from radio drama for fear of offending Muslims

The BBC has been accused of 'extraordinary' censorship by a leading playwright after dialogue was cut from her hard-hitting drama in case it offended Muslims.

Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, whose 2004 play Behzti was pulled from a Birmingham theatre after it sparked Sikh protests, says the Corporation tampered with her work because it involved an honour killing.

Ms Bhatti was commissioned by Radio 4 to write an episode of its police drama Stone.

Her episode, The Heart of Darkness, will be broadcast this Friday, but she says the BBC has caused an 'awful situation' which has led to a 'betrayal' of her work.

At the centre of her story is the honour killing of a 16-year-old Asian girl, and DCI Stone is told by his bosses to treat the case 'sensitively' because she is Muslim. [MailOnline] Read more