Nearly 700 members of the documentary community have signed an open letter to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) alleging the presence of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism in its news and documentary units.

The letter was sent jointly by the Racial Equity Media Collective (REMC) and the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) and is addressed to CBC/Radio-Canada president Catherine Tait; Sally Catto, GM of entertainment, factual and sports; Jennifer Dettman, executive director, unscripted content; and the CBC values and ethics commissioner.

The open letter seeks accountability for what its authors claim is the pubcaster’s “apparent pattern of anti-Palestinian bias, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism within the corporation’s news and documentary culture.”

The letter goes on to outline specific and recent examples of alleged anti-Palestinian bias and racism in CBC News and its documentary unit.

In outlining the concerns directed at CBC News, the letter claims that CBC Radio program The Current deleted the word “Palestine” from the online record and later broadcasts of an episode in 2020, with the host issuing an on-air apology for having used the word “Palestine” at all.

That letter also states that in May 2021 Canadian journalists signed an open letter to Canadian newsrooms calling for “fair, nuanced and contextual reporting on Palestine and for the inclusion of Palestinian voices.” CBC journalists who signed the 2021 letter reported that “CBC had barred them from working on stories related to Palestine-Israel; leaked emails from CBC management to all staff ask them to refrain from using “Palestine” even in casual conversations.”

The open letter then takes aim at the CBC documentary unit, specifically an unnamed documentary production executive who, it claims, “shared dozens of racist, discriminatory and often factually incorrect social media posts about Muslims, Palestine and Palestinians.”

As written in the letter, “per CBC policies, this behaviour would be inappropriate for any CBC employee. But the posts were especially shocking coming from a production executive with major editorial oversight, who plays a central role in determining which filmmakers and documentary projects CBC will commission.”

It is also claimed in the missive that this particular executive’s behaviour was flagged to the executive’s manager, the CBC ombudsman, and the CBC values and ethics commissioner. It is alleged that, despite this attempt to bring accountability, “instead, over a span of months, these policy violations were allowed to continue and even intensify.”

The open letter also lays out a timeline whereby a formal complaint against the executive was made on Feb. 26. In this instance, according to REMC, screenshots of the social media posts in question were included for reference. This did little to deter the behaviour, with the executive in question launching a different social media account that went undetected by the CBC for four weeks, according to the letter. Only after a second letter of complaint was submitted to the broadcaster on March 28, and signed by over 130 documentary professionals, did the executive go on leave.

The letter also cites “multiple stories from documentary filmmakers of their experience of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian discrimination in working with the CBC over many years.” It was also stated that these filmmakers resisted reporting the alleged discrimination out of fear of reprisals.

The letter’s authors also make mention of senior CBC managers privately admitting “the breach of community trust” these issues have caused, as well as a desire to “repair that breach.”

Chuck Thompson, CBC’s head of public affairs, told Playback Daily that CBC does not comment on confidential employee matters, when asked for a statement on the allegations.

The open letter proposes five commitments from CBC in order to address the concerns outlined and to regain trust within the documentary and Islamic and Palestinian communities, setting a deadline of June 14 to respond publicly. At press time among the more than 670 signatories are REMC managing director Julian Carrington, DOC executive director Sarah Spring, and filmmakers such as Sarah Polley, Avi Lewis, Amar Wala, and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers. New signatories are being added daily.

The commitments include a public acknowledgment of “the harms and breaches of trust” allegedly caused by CBC staff; steps to “ensure that Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism will no longer be tolerated within CBC”; training for CBC news and documentary staff on Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism; a 10-year historical audit on the commissioning of licensing of productions by independent Indigenous and racialized filmmakers; and the creation of a clear channel to for independent filmmakers to report instances of discrimination.

The full letter can be viewed on the REMC website.

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