However my praise for them has mostly come from their insistence upon reporting on the war crimes committed by Mahinda Rajapaksha against civilians, especially during the concluding weeks of the 26-year long Sri lankan civil war.
Last year video footage of civilians naked and bound being executed by Sri-Lankan soldiers was thoroughly analysed for it's validity and publicised. I can't help but be critical and say that had this footage only been handed to the BBC, we may never have known of it's existence. I will repeat what many others have said in the past and, as cynical of this as I was years ago I thoroughly believe it now, is that the BBC news is biased. It will not publicise news that will be an 'annoyance' to the government. After all, foreign countries see the BBC as a representative of the British government. How could the BBC criticise Mahinda on war crimes without creating tension between the two countries? What worries me though, is it's influence on select societies. With the BBC being world's largest broadcast news organisation it has an influence on a vast majority of the population. Is this healthy? For matters of self-preservation it is bound to ignore very controversial subjects, and worse, put a 'shine on things.' Does this not make some ignorant to matters that need attention? Such as the shocking information revealed on Wikileaks of the Iraq secret files and the exploitation of the poor during Africa World Cup 2010?
On the subject of the Sri lankan Civil war, it worries me that it only gets a small mention on the BBC, making this vast audience assume it to be a small matter. I do not know many who would go to even the smallest length to find out more about it. Such a subject has to be brought to everyone's attention. This was done not only by Channel 4 News but also by hundreds of Tamil protesters in London, outside the Parliament as well as conducting marches. I noticed that when this protest was shown by the BBC, the presenter was more concerned about the traffic problems this has caused rather than of the actual reason for it! That would be tricky subject to cover now wouldn't it? I had not heard of a single policitician promising to look into it yet. It makes me quite sad to admit that politicians would be jumping all over the atrocities that took place in Sri Lanka if the civilians looked more western... more 'beautiful.' It shocks me to says this, disgusts me, but a part of me sees that this is true. Perhaps if Sri Lanka had valuable natural resources like oil? Maybe the Americans would have gotten involved shouting vaguely about human rights and what not. On the other hand... maybe not the Americans.
Along with Tamil civilians protesting, Channel 4 continues to raise light on the matter, attempting to question the leader himself, gaining opinions of the video from professional analysts, international human rights lawyers, and from the Sri Lankan embassy themselves whom continue to call the video a 'fake.' It has analysed documents on Wikileaks which proves that the United States believes war crimes took place. What matters most is that they are pressing the importance of this matter to the United Nations, whomm are concluding gathering evidence as part of their independent international war crimes inquiry.
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