【每日电讯报】BBC apologises in new race row

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BBC apologises in new race row
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/5742586/BBC-apologises-in-new-race-row.html

By Richard Eden Published: 9:52PM BST 04 Jul 2009

Just five months after they sacked Carol Thatcher as a contributor for comparing a tennis player to a golliwog, the producers of The One Show have felt the need to apologise for another alleged racial faux pas.

Some viewers of the BBC One programme complained after Martin Jarvis, the actor best known for his readings on Jackanory, complimented a fellow guest, Fatima Barkatullah, who was wearing a niqab, a face veil in which only her eyes could be seen.

"You have wonderful and lovely eyes," he told her after she had explained during a discussion about Muslim women's dress that wearing niqab or burka was partly intended to discourage unwanted attention from men.

"The producers were apologising in the green room afterwards," she tells me. "But I knew he meant it in good spirits. Martin said afterwards that he was just saying what the whole nation was thinking. I think some people were offended on my behalf. My husband met him in the green room afterwards and told him he wasn't going to ask him to step outside."

In February, Carol Thatcher was banned from The One Show after being reported for referring to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the French tennis player, as a "golliwog".

The daughter of Baroness Thatcher made the remark during an off-camera conversation with the presenter Adrian Chiles. Although the conversation took place in the green room and not on air, her remark was heard by several members of the production team, as well as Chiles, who was described as "shocked".