ALEX Salmond has intervened in the Wings Over Scotland censorship row, demanding the BBC’s director-general prove the corporation “is not pursuing a campaign against sites which support Scottish independence”.
The popular blogger’s YouTube channel was taken down over the weekend, after the BBC claimed 13 videos containing clips from news and current affairs programme breached copyright laws.
Stuart Campbell, who runs Wings Over Scotland, said the videos should be covered by “fair dealing” exceptions to copyright, which allow material to be used for the purposes of “criticism, review and reporting current events”.
WATCH: Alex Salmond's video diary on BBC's YouTube censorship of Wings
He also argued that the BBC has only targeted pro-independence channels. Fellow prominent independence campaigner, Peter Curran, who tweets as Moridura, has also had his YouTube channel closed.
In his letter to Tony Hall, the former first minister said his concern over the legal action was in part because one of the videos targeted by the BBC was an interview with him in the run up to the 2014 independence referendum.
Salmond said that he was also concerned about the corporation’s refusal to take part in an interview on the issue on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme yesterday.
READ MORE: BBC lawyers refuse to answer on air why Wings Over Scotland channel targeted
The former politician has asked Hall to explain why “popular independence-supporting websites [are being] targeted for enforcement action by the BBC lawyers in London” while “Unionist-supporting sites” have been allowed to keep “innumerable BBC excerpts in use on YouTube channels”.
He then asks what his rights in this situation are: “If memory serves, this news interview now removed from YouTube was a challenge from me to the then prime minister to debate on Scottish independence. It now has disappeared from the public record thanks to the BBC action.”
Salmond adds: “Why does the BBC as a public service broadcaster presume to effectively expunge my interview from the public record without so much as a by-your-leave?”
He argues that by departing from the fair-comment exemption for news excerpts the BBC’s “lawyers are bound down a very rocky road”.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond’s full letter to BBC Director General over Wings YouTube ban
Salmond, who now presents his own current affairs show on Russia Today, has had a tricky relationship with the BBC over the years.
Most notably in the week before the independence referendum when former political editor Nick Robinson claimed the SNP leader had failed to answer a question on reports that RBS would leave Scotland after a Yes vote.
In his letter to Hall, Salmond concluded: “There is considerable public interest in this matter and I look forward to an early reply and hopefully one that satisfies the Scottish public that the BBC as a public service broadcaster has not set its face against fair comment and freedom of speech and further is not pursuing a campaign against sites which support Scottish independence.”
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