British Govt & Parliament strongly defend BBC after I-T survey at Delhi, Mumbai offices

The British government strongly defended the BBC and said the issue of the Income-Tax survey on BBC India offices was raised with India. This happened during a British Parliament debate on Tuesday.

“We stand up for the BBC, we fund the BBC, we think the BBC World Service is vitally important. We want the BBC to have that editorial freedom,” Tory MP David Rutley said. He pointed out that the BBC criticises the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.

Jim Shannon, of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) alleged that the “raid” on BBC offices in India was “a deliberate act of intimidation following the release of an unflattering documentary about the country’s leader”.

Labour MP Fabian Hamilton said “In any democracy, the media must have the ability to criticise and scrutinise political leaders without fear of repercussions, and that clearly applies in this situation,”

Britain’s first turbaned Sikh MP, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, said, “That’s why many of us were so concerned that in India, a nation with which we have shared values of democracy and press freedoms, they decided to conduct raids on BBC offices after their airing of a documentary which was critical of the Indian prime minister’s actions.”