Pakistan

Editing out Jadhav's mention from Asad Umar interview 'not censorship': BBC

British news outlet claims omission of self-confessed Indian spy's name owing to time constraints

News Desk December 13, 2018

news outlet says omission of indian spy 039 s name owing to time constraints screen grab bbc

News outlet says omission of Indian spy's name owing to time constraints. SCREEN GRAB: BBC

Following a raft of criticism from Pakistan's Twitter users, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has come out to clarify that leaving out Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav's mention from its interview with Finance Minister Asad Umar was "not an act of censorship" and it was edited out owing to time constraints.

In an interview to BBC’s HardTalk Stephen Sackur asked Umar a wide-range of questions.

The televised version, however, did not contain his mention of Jadhav, who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military tribunal for his involvement in espionage last year.

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"The reason Kulbhushan Jadhav’s name was deleted from the TV version of the HARDtalk interview with Asad Umar has a simple technical explanation," said a tweet from the programme's Twitter handle. "The recorded interview was too long for our broadcast slot and so had to be edited."

The reason Kulbhushan Jadhav’s name was deleted from the TV version of the HARDtalk interview with Asad Umar has a simple technical explanation.
The recorded interview was too long for our broadcast slot and so had to be edited. This was done separately for radio and TV. 1/2
— BBC HARDtalk (@BBCHARDtalk) December 13, 2018

The channel said Jadhav's name had been omitted from the TV version of the interview and not the radio version, and that it was not done to censor the minister's words.

His name was omitted from the TV version. This was not an act of censorship, but clearly confusion has been caused, so we are happy to restore that short section to the TV broadcast and we’ll give the new programme an extra airing tonight as well as tomorrow morning. 2/2 https://t.co/STjcCKsWGt
— BBC HARDtalk (@BBCHARDtalk) December 13, 2018

Because "clearly confusion has been caused", the broadcaster said it would restore the omitted "short section" to the programme and air the new TV version again on Thursday and Friday night.

COMMENTS (2)

Stephen Sucker | 6 years ago | Reply Steve: There is censorship in Pakistan and freedom of expression isn't tolerated. BBC: removes mention of Jadhav Steve: No censorship, it was a technical issue due to time shortage! Yeah! right!

Atsul Kalam | 6 years ago | Reply SHAME on you BBC Please check who made the so called "Mistake" to remove such an solid and important fact from the interview, this "innocent mistake" must have been made by an employee if Indian decent aka worldwide RAW agents.

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