A BBC documentary about the London riots had to be pulled just hours before it was due to go out following a mystery banning order.
Some form of interim injunction has suspended the broadcast of two hour-long programmes called “The riots in their own words”, and the BBC is banned from revealing any details.
The documentary features actors reading interviews with 270 people involved in the riots, conducted in a joint project by the Guardian and London School of Economics.
The Guardian reported that, for legal reasons, it could not “name the judge who made the ruling, the court in which he is sitting or the case he is presiding over”.
Chief executive of Press freedom group Index on Censorship Kirsty Hughes said: “This is a disturbing move. Censoring television programmes is not in any way helpful to our understanding of the important issues and factors underlying the disturbances.”
The BBC could only confirm that it intended to broadcast the programmes at a later date.
(Source: Press Gazette)
