A CALLER who was cut off live on air by a Radio 2 presenter after condemning the BBC's "complicity" in the genocide in Gaza has revealed she was taking part in a "coordinated campaign" against the broadcaster.
Mary Nest Lawrence, 23, from Manchester, accused the Labour Government and the BBC of being "complicit in the Palestinian genocide" before she was promptly cut off by the host during a segment on wedding speeches on BBC Radio 2 on Thursday.
Lawrence said: "Hi there, I'm just calling, thank you so much for putting me on. The BBC and the UK Government are complicit in the Palestinian genoc–"
She was promptly cut off before she could say the end of the word "genocide", as radio host Tina Daheely went on to say: "Oh, okay, not about wedding speeches at all. Cut that one off there because I've no idea what else they were going to say."
A BBC spokesperson said at the time: “During a specific item on wedding speeches, a caller began to give personal views unrelated to the subject matter, so we swiftly moved on to the next listener’s opinion.”
Speaking to The National, Lawrence (below) revealed that the disruption was part of a coordinated effort by campaign group Youth Demand, which is planning on taking more action against the BBC in the coming months.
The broadcaster was also found to have interrupted or dismissed claims of genocide more than 100 times – while only 3% of articles analysed by the CfMM used the terms "war crimes" in relation to Israeli violence against Palestinians.
Lawrence told The National that the BBC is where "everyone gets their information from", particularly if they are less politically active.
"Information is such a tool – how are people who aren't necessarily political supposed to know what's going on if the BBC is not telling anybody about it?", she said.
"We disagree with the UK Government for continuing trade with Israel, for allowing all of these people to die despite the fact that Netanyahu's been tried as a war criminal.
"And the BBC is not showing any of this. They're not doing their job, they're not providing everybody with all the facts."
Lawrence said that a group of seven campaigners had tried to get on the BBC's phone-in on Thursday.
"I was the only one who got on, but we're going to keep trying," she said.
"It's ironic I got halfway through the word 'genocide' and then they cut me off," she told The National.
A similar incident involving the BBC also took place on Thursday, when a student opening their A-Level results in England was cut off after saying "free Palestine, end the genocide and the BBC's complicity".
Lawrence said that it was "bonkers" to see a similar scenario unfold on the same day, but added that it was also "so positive".
She told The National: "Young people don't really have a platform in the media. If I was a young person and I heard that kind of stuff in the media I'd be like, 'oh great, so people are mad, people are angry and they disagree with what's going on'."
Youth Action has previously targeted the BBC through various sit-in protests, and has also disrupted several major events including this year's Eurovision Song Contest and London Pride, where activists blocked the float of US-based technology company Cisco over its alleged ties with Israel.
However, in the coming months, The National understands that the non-violent direct action group are planning on focusing their efforts more on the BBC – such as through more phone-in disruptions and sit-ins – in the hope that the BBC will change the way it reports on Gaza.
"You go on the Al Jazeera website and the first thing you're confronted with is how many people we've lost overnight.
"We should be bombarded by what's happening, we shouldn't be allowed to look away, we shouldn't be listening to [segments on] awkward wedding speeches when people are being gunned down while they queue for aid.
"They're offering no accurate representation of the world and they claim to be a news channel. They're lying by omission."
