A group of 260 Britons of Somali origin has submitted a letter to the chairman of the BBC's board of governors, charging that the BBC's Somali service has become a "tool of propaganda" of the beseiged Islamist regime in Somalia. Here is an excerpt from their letter, as picked up by the websites Ummah News Links and SomaliNet.

...the people in charge of the Somali Service are neither being impartial, diverse in opinion nor fair in reporting the reality in Somalia. On the contrary, they appear to be taking sides and acting as tools of propaganda for the Islamic Courts Union.

In our opinion, a group of Islamic Courts Union Supporters within the BBC Somali Service are selectively choosing interviewees to express the opinion of the group that the Islamic Courts Union are the chosen liberators of the Somali people. Thereby using the good offices of the BBC to campaign for the newly emerged Taliban Style Forces. We know these Forces as the New Somali Warlords who have replaced the previous, now ousted Somali Warlords. The people in charge of the BBC Somali Service is giving the activists of the Islamic Courts Union a platform as a means of propaganda for the purpose of poisoning, brain-washing and recruiting young innocent Somali-Britons and other youth Muslims in Britain, Somalia, and The East African Region, and indeed World-wide.

As you know, the ousted Somali Warlords killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian Somalis. Dismantled our country's physical infrastructure and social fabric, and took Somalia back to the Stone Age. Their activities were then confined in the Somali Territory. But now these Islamic Courts, the New Warlords, are a global threat, fanatic madmen, extremists and fundamentalists who want and plan to wage war on everyone, every religion & faith, including Islam. They have declared JIHAD without understanding what JIHAD is. They are only using Religion as a means to achieve their goals through the implementation of far more deadly and dangerous hidden agenda. I enclose a DVD Video demonstrating the Islamic Courts Union's ideology and actions since they seized power in Mogadishu and Southern Somalia Regions.

What has happened to the Journalism Ethics of the BBC Somali Service? What has happened to the trusted and respected core values of News Broadcasting that has always distinguished the BBC from all the other Broadcasting Media? Are we to understand that the ethics of the BBC Somali Service are now the accepted ethics of the BBC.

Update: Apparently it is quite lonely being a Tory at the BBC.