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Dear Ms Hannah Beveridge,

I have to say that the Federation Chairman Dr Jan Mokrzycki and myself are very disappointed by the conclusions reached by the PCC. Following your organisation’s positive role in the earlier dispute between the Federation of Poles and the “Daily Mail”, we had expected a more positive judgement from the Commission.

Those who trusted in the objectivity and high mindedness of the British media had expected that the outrageous comments by Giles Coren, which the “The Times” sub-editors had allowed themselves to publish in “The Times”, would be condemed by the PCC because they fly in the face of good community relations, a sense of fairness and sound English common sense. Both the “Times” editors and yourself had already referred to Giles Coren’s articles as “prejudiced”. How wrong we were. Obviously these are not the criteria on which the sole press watchdog in the UK, the PCC, now operates.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is prevented by its terms of reference from commenting on the printed press. Consequently the monitoring of ethical standards in the British press is the sole preserve of the PCC.  However your decision has exposed the fact that the Editors’ Code of Practice has no protection against slander against whole communities, only against named individuals. I have already made the point that “Polacks” is an offensive term but your Commissioners refuse to condemn it. You cover yourselves by the letter and not the spirit of the Code of Practice to justify such a phrase on the grounds that, as it refers to a whole community and not to an individual, it is beyond your jurisdiction. The quotation I provided from the “Jewish Chronicle” was sufficient evidence that Giles Coren’s attitudes is dominated by contempt and hatred and so cannot be justified as an innocuous humorous aside.

What of offensive terms made about other minorities in the British press? What legislation then protects Jews and Indians against abusive terms like “Kikes” and “Pakis”? If neither the PCC nor the EHRC can intervene in such cases, what prevents the use of such abusive terms against them. A sense of propriety? Fear of disapproval by their readers or their own staff? A fear of litigation on grounds of incitement? Why then cannot Poles be protected by similar measures? Are there no Polish readers, no Polish newspaper staff, no Polish litigants, no Polish rioters or demonstrators to fear?
Furthermore though we successfully showed that there was no evidence provided by “The Times” of Poles locking up and burning Jews in synagogues as a recreational Easter pastime, you have used an incident in the Ukraine during the terror and chaos of the Russian Revolution, in which (…) there was no active participation by Poles, as justification for your Commissioners to maintain that this passage justified Giles Coren’s Polonophobic jibes about Easter.

I chose to remind the PCC before your final decision that this episode has caused considerable outrage both in Poland and among Poles in the UK. There have been parliamentary interventions in Poland, complaints from the Human Rights Commissioner in Poland, letters from concerned British citizens such as Lord Belhaven, and a 2000 strong petition from the Polish Professionals which “The Times” appear to have been completely ignored, I said that the reputation in Poland of the British press as a whole is at stake in this decision. Today your ruling has caused that reputation enormous damage.

We maintain that communities in the UK deserve and require protection against inaccurate information and insults. Effectively you say that this is no longer the role of the PCC. You have now put both British parliamentarians and the Court of Justice of the European Comunities on notice that another body needs to protect Poles and other minorities against this kind of abuse and xenophobia in this country and that the European Convention on the Protection of National Minorities needs to find a champion in this country.
We hope you will convey our disappointment over your decision to all your Commissioners.

Yours sincerely,