BBC partly upholds complaints over Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set

The BBC’s broadcast of Bob Vylan’s controversial set at Glastonbury broke editorial guidelines in relation to harm and offence, the corporation’s complaints unit has ruled.

However, it has been cleared of breaching the BBC’s rules on impartiality and being likely to encourage or incite crime.

The punk duo led a chant of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” and made other derogatory comments during their performance, which was available to watch via a live stream on iPlayer.

The ruling comes after the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) examined four complaints, which have been partly upheld.

The BBC’s handling of Bob Vylan’s festival set, which was streamed on iPlayer, sparked strong criticism after the event in June.

BBC chairman Samir Shah said the decision not to pull the live feed after they made the on-stage comments was “unquestionably an error of judgement”.

Director general Tim Davie apologised, saying: “I deeply regret that such offensive and deplorable behaviour appeared on the BBC.”

The BBC’s complaints unit said the broadcast broke harm and offence guidelines because of the band’s chants against the IDF, their uses of the slogans “From the river to the sea” and “Free, free Palestine”, and their references to a record company boss “in the most abusive terms”, using offensive language referring to “Zionists”.

The latter segment was in breach of guidance that prohibits “unduly intimidating, humiliating, intrusive, aggressive or derogatory remarks aimed at real people”, the ruling said.

The comments, “taken in the round”, could “fairly be characterised as antisemitic”, the ruling said.

The ECU did not decide that the performance breached guidelines likely to encourage or incite crime, however.

The ruling said: “References to ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘From the river to the sea’, while viewed by some as implying the disappearance of the state of Israel, can also be regarded as no more than expressions of support for aspirations to a Palestinian state and do not of themselves threaten violent action.”

While it said the chant of “Death, death to the IDF” was “clearly more problematic… it is directed at an institution rather than individuals, and one which is not defined by ethnic or religious composition”, the ECU ruled.

On the question of impartiality, the ECU took the view that coverage of a music festival does not have to meet the same standards as a news or current affairs programme.

“While recognising there is widespread disagreement with the political views expressed by Bob Vylan on this occasion, the ECU did not consider they represented a breach of the BBC’s standards of impartiality in this context,” it said.

The corporation admitted in July that errors were made both before and during the group’s appearance.

The band were deemed “high risk”, so the feed was monitored and warnings appeared on screen, but the broadcast was not stopped after they made the comments in question.

Following the festival, a small number of senior staff stepped back from their day-to-day duties on music and live events, and the BBC announced a series of changes to the way it streams music performances.

Avon and Somerset Police launched an investigation into the band’s comments.

After the festival, Bob Vylan said in a statement: “We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine”.