[With gratitude and thanks we reproduce the relevant portion of the Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin Issue number 157 10 May 2010 rejecting Auroville complaint against BBC.]
Fairness & Privacy cases Not Upheld
Complaint by The Auroville Foundation and the community of Auroville made on their behalf by The Working Committee of the Residents’ Assembly of the Auroville Foundation through its authorized representative, Mr. Carel B Thieme News Night, BBC2, 21 May 2008
Introduction to Of Com
The Broadcast Bulletin reports on the outcome of investigations into alleged breaches of those Ofcom codes which broadcasting licensees are required to comply. These include: a) Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code (“the Code”) which took effect on 16 December 2009 and covers all programmes broadcast on or after 16 December 2009. The Broadcasting Code can be found at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/bcode/. Note: Programmes broadcast prior to 16 December 2009 are covered by the 2005 Code which came into effect on 25 July 2005 (with the exception of Rule 10.17 which came into effect on 1 July 2005). The 2005 Code can be found at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/bcode_2005/. b) The Code on the Scheduling of Television Advertising (“COSTA”) which came into effect on 1 September 2008 and contains rules on how much advertising and teleshopping may be scheduled in programmes, how many breaks are allowed and when they may be taken. COSTA can be found at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/code_adv/tacode.pdf. c) Other codes and requirements that may also apply to broadcasters, depending on their circumstances. These include the Code on Television Access Services (which sets out how much subtitling, signing and audio description relevant licensees must provide), the Code on Electronic Programme Guides, the Code on Listed Events, and the Cross Promotion Code. Links to all these codes can be found at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/ From time to time adjudications relating to advertising content may appear in the Bulletin in relation to areas of advertising regulation which remain with Ofcom (including the application of statutory sanctions by Ofcom). It is Ofcom’s policy to describe fully the content in television and radio programmes that is subject to broadcast investigations. Some of the language and descriptions used in Ofcom’s Broadcast Bulletin may therefore cause offence.
Fairness and Privacy Cases Not Upheld Complaint by The Auroville Foundation and the community of Auroville made on their behalf by The Working Committee of the Residents’ Assembly of the Auroville Foundation through its authorized representative, Mr. Carel B Thieme News night, BBC2, 21 May 2008
Summary: Ofcom has not upheld the complaint of unfair treatment made by Mr. Thieme on behalf of The Auroville Foundation and the community of Auroville. An item in this programme looked at Auroville, a town in southern India created as a spiritual experiment dedicated to the realization of human unity. The programme reported on ongoing tensions between the community of Auroville and local villagers and, in particular, allegations by local villagers that their children were being sexually abused. The Auroville Foundation and the community of Auroville (“the Complainants”) complained that they were treated unfairly in the programme as broadcast. In summary Ofcom found the following: The programme did not present allegations that there was a serious and widespread problem of child abuse in Auroville and that not enough was being done about it by the Auroville authorities in a way that was unfair to the Complainants. The context in which villagers’ claims of exploitation and fear of the Complainants were presented in the programme did not result in the Complainants being unfairly portrayed in the programme. The programme did not portray the Complainants as an anarchic sect and as a result they were not treated unfairly in this respect. · Minor inaccuracies as to population of Auroville and members’ tax status did not result in unfairness to the Complainants. To the extent that misrepresentation or deception was employed to obtain broadcast material in this case, this was not unfair because its use was in the public interest. The Complainants were provided with an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond to the allegations made in the programme.
Introduction
On 21 May 2008, BBC2 broadcast an edition of News night, which included a report about the town of Auroville in southern India, a town created as a spiritual experiment whose community is dedicated to the realization of human unity. The town is administered by the Auroville Foundation, a statutory body set up by the Indian Government, with input from the Residents’ Assembly of Auroville (comprising all the residents of Auroville aged 18 years and over) via its Working Committee. The programme explained that Auroville was set up as a community where “people of all nations could live together in harmony with no money, no rules and no leaders”. The programme said that financial inequalities between Aurovilians and the local Tamil villagers had caused ongoing tensions between the Auroville Foundation and the community of Auroville (“the Complainants”) and the villagers. The programme said that many local people had alleged that the Complainants exploited them and reported that there had been allegations of sexual abuse of local children in and around the town of Auroville by both residents of, and tourists to, Auroville. The programme also reported allegations that the Complainants were aware sexual abuse was happening, but were doing little to address it. It noted that the Complainants said the allegations were unfounded. The programme included footage of interviews with: · Mr Raj Batra who had lived in Auroville as a guest for two years and who said he had spoken to people in Auroville about the abuse of local children by Aurovilians, but that they did not consider that was their problem. · Mr. N Nandhivarman, a local politician, who was concerned that not enough was being done about paedophiles by the local police or the Complainants.
Anonymous villager, “Sundrun”, who said he had been abused when he was younger and that the abuse of children was continuing. · Anonymous villager, “Shiva”, who said that children were being abused, particularly at the New Creation School in Auroville. · Mr. Ram Kumar Raj who worked for an NGO and who said that, in order to address the sexual abuse issue, the Auroville Foundation should scrutinize its guests and members more thoroughly. Mr. Gilles Guigan, an Aurovilian, who explained that Auroville was trying to become an “ideal society”, but that like any society it could only reflect the quality of its members. The programme also referred to the case of Mr. Didier Keim who was expelled from Auroville and who was subsequently convicted of paedophilia in nearby Pondicherry. The programme also broadcast two extracts from the Complainants’ intranet site. One was said to openly refer to worries of abuse at the New Creation School. The other was shown as a visual image alongside narrative stating that some Aurovilians had been told they could no longer work in India. Ms Rachel Wright, the reporter, also said in the programme that a beach near
Auroville was one where westerners went to pick up young Indian children, and that she had witnessed two separate men with two young Indian boys, one of whom had been taken to a beach hut.
Finally, the programme included an interview with, and photograph of, Mr. Carel Thieme of the Working Committee of the Auroville Residents’ Assembly (the “Working Committee”). The Working Committee first complained to the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit on behalf of the Complainants that the programme as broadcast was unfair and inaccurate. The complaint was not upheld by the BBC and, in a complaint received on 13 January 2009; Mr. Thieme complained to Ofcom on behalf of the Complainants that they had been treated unfairly in the programme as broadcast. The Complaint The Complainants’ case In summary, the Complainants said that they were treated unfairly in the programme as broadcast in that: a) They were unfairly portrayed because the programme: i) Suggested wrongly and unfairly that paedophilia was “rampant” in Auroville and that nothing was being done about it, by: · Presenting the statements of Mr. Raj Batra and Mr. N Nandhivarman, the statements of anonymous villagers “Shiva” and “Sundrun” and the statements of Ms Rachel Wright (“the reporter”) at the beach, as factual, credible evidence of child abuse and inaction by Aurovilians or guests in Auroville, despite the fact that: · with the exception of one allegation by “Sundrun”, none of them claimed to have first-hand knowledge or evidence of child abuse by Aurovilians or guests in Auroville; · both Mr. Batra, who was asked to leave Auroville in 2004, and local politician, Mr. Nandhivarman, had a history of antipathy towards the Complainants; · “Shiva” had already provided an untenable and unreliable statement; · the reporter had no evidence that the men she saw on the beach were Aurovilians or guests in Auroville or that they were involved in child abuse; and · details of these allegations were not provided to the Complainants or the authorities to investigate. · Presenting statements made by Mr. Gilles Guigan and Mr. Ram Kumar Raj out of context so as to suggest they agreed Auroville had a problem with child abuse. In fact, Mr. Guigan had been talking about ideal societies and Mr. Raj, that the Complainants, like everyone else, had to take the universal problem of child abuse seriously. · Presenting two extracts from the Complainants’ intranet out of context as evidence of child abuse problems in Auroville, when in fact the first extract was almost five years old and referred to past problems of child abuse.
The second, referring to a person’s visa having “been cancelled”, had nothing to do with child abuse in Auroville, but referred to a mentally unstable person seen wandering near Auroville in 2008. · Inaccurately presenting the way in which Mr. Didier Keim was dealt with by the Complainants, wrongly suggesting that after they said they had expelled Mr. Keim in 1996, he was allowed to work with children in Auroville for another five years before he was finally arrested and subsequently sentenced for paedophilia in the nearby city of Pondicherry in 2004. · Asking if the Complainants were doing enough about “brazen” child abuse taking place at the public beach near Auroville, but omitting the Complainants’ statement that there was zero tolerance by them for issues of child abuse. ii) Suggested wrongly and unfairly that the Complainants exploited the local Tamil villagers, that few ever become members of Auroville and that they feared reprisals from the Complainants if they spoke out. By way of background, the Complainants said that they employed approximately 4,000 local villagers with salaries and employment benefits equal to or better than could be obtained in nearby Pondicherry for comparable work. The Complainants had set up seven schools for village children, made huge efforts to help the development of the surrounding villages and, after the Tsunami struck southern India, played a large part in the relief effort in the area. In addition, many local villagers aspired to become Aurovilians and they formed the single largest group in Auroville, representing more than 33% of residents. Finally, in the 40 years of Auroville’s existence there had not been one instance of reprisal or retribution by an Aurovilian. iii) Suggested wrongly and unfairly that the Complainants were an anarchic sect, by stating that residents had to undergo a year’s induction before becoming
full members, that Aurovilians believed in “divine anarchy”, with no rules and no leaders, that the Complainants had no leadership structure and that the Complainants had slipped beneath the radar. By way of background, the Complainants said that they had no induction process; it was not a sect, although there was a Newcomer probationary period. There was no aspiration for no rules and no leaders. The Complainants had rules, such as their Admission Policy and a formal management structure set out in the Auroville Foundation Act, 1988 (“the Auroville Act”) which created and constituted the Auroville Foundation, the Governing Board, the International Advisory Council, the Secretary, the Residents’ Assembly and the Working Committee to develop Auroville in accordance with its ideals. The Secretary, an official of the Indian Government and permanent resident in Auroville, would have protested if the Complainants had “slipped beneath the radar”. iv) contained numerous other inaccuracies which contributed to their unfair portrayal, including suggestions that: · 16,000 Tamil villagers lived in Auroville; · the Complainants were partly financed by the Indian Government; and Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin, Issue 157 10 May 2010 · Auroville’s members paid no tax. Furthermore, much of the footage broadcast was not of Auroville, but of surrounding farmland, villages and Pondicherry. b) The programme broadcast material obtained by deception, despite the fact that: i) there was no public interest in the broadcast of that material. ii) The material could have been obtained by other means: · the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Officer (“the RRO”) could have informed the reporter about all the cases of paedophilia in Auroville in the last 15 years; and · the BBC was invited to visit Auroville prior to the broadcast to make a more thorough and objective investigation. The Working Committee offered to co-operate fully to ensure that the BBC had access to all possible sources of information. By way of background, the Complainants said that the reporter obtained permission to visit and film in Auroville and to interview residents of Auroville on the pretext that, amongst other things, she wished to explain the philosophy and idealism of Auroville, how it had started and how it had developed in 40 years. In fact, she was planning to make a film on perceived child sexual abuse before she came to visit Auroville and she deceived the Complainants about the true nature of her visit. c) The Complainants were not given an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond to the allegations made in the programme as broadcast, in that: i) During the course of her interview with the principal of the New Creation School, the reporter did not provide the principal with an opportunity to respond to the allegations of child abuse at the school by putting those allegations to the principal.
ii) The reporter unfairly omitted to give the Auroville Foundation or any resident Aurovilian an opportunity to contribute or respond to the allegations while she was in Auroville. She neither contacted the resident Secretary of the Auroville Foundation nor the Working Committee. iii) The BBC emailed the transcript of the intended programme to the Working Committee, but gave them less than 24 hours to respond. The Working Committee emailed the BBC with a long list of detailed comments however, instead of correcting everything; the BBC accepted some corrections and ignored many others, with the result that many damaging and seriously defamatory inaccuracies were broadcast in the programme that same evening. iv) a short interview with Working Committee member, Mr. Thieme, was included at the end of the programme with a static picture of him. It did not, therefore, have the same weight and was far less persuasive than if such response had been incorporated into the programme itself. By way of background, the Complainants said that it was only after strong protests from the Working Committee that the BBC agreed to include an interview with a member of the Working Committee in the programme as broadcast. Furthermore, the BBC did not send the questions to Mr. Thieme in advance, so he had no idea what to expect, and he had not been informed by the BBC what allegations had actually been broadcast in the programme and what had not. Finally, the time given to Mr. Thieme’s response was perhaps less than three minutes. The BBC’s case a) In summary, the BBC responded to the head of complaint that the Complainants were portrayed unfairly as follows: i) The BBC said it did not accept that the programme gave the impression that “rampant paedophilia” existed in Auroville, but rather that the programme suggested that there was a serious problem of child abuse involving some residents of Auroville which had not been effectively addressed by the Complainants. The BBC said that nowhere was the word “rampant”, or anything synonymous with it, or even similar to it, actually used. The BBC said it believed that there was a substantial array of witnesses offering testimony from a number of perspectives which tended to corroborate each other to provide a sufficient basis for the claim that allegations of abuse were not being effectively tackled by the Complainants. The BBC said that the fact that only one of the witnesses was a direct victim of child abuse did not undermine the fact that other witnesses were aware of abuse or allegations of abuse and provided compelling support for the claim that the Complainants had failed to investigate such allegations seriously. In any event, the BBC said that this was not the limit of the evidence gathered by the programme. The BBC said that the reporter had a number of conversations with other witnesses who corroborated the allegations being made, but who were not prepared to speak publicly. The BBC said that it was clear to the reporter that the concerns expressed by the anonymous villager in the programme were shared by other villagers and that there were other young people who claimed to have been sexually abused by Aurovilians. The BBC said that the reporter also became aware of what seemed to her to be a climate of fear which discouraged people from speaking out publicly, not least because of the financial dependence of many local people on the Complainants. The BBC said it did not accept the Complainants’ characterization of the attitude of Mr. Batra and Mr. Nandhivarman towards them. The BBC said that in fact both had earned the enmity of the Complainants because they had highlighted the issue of child abuse by Auroville residents and had campaigned publicly for the Complainants to take the issue seriously and investigate allegations of abuse. The BBC said it could not be argued that their testimony in relation to this issue was unreliable when the “antipathy” which existed derived originally from the Complainants’ failure to deal with abuse. In relation to “Shiva’s” “untenable and unreliable statement”, the BBC said that this referred to a claim made by him in interview that one in five children at the New Creation School had been abused. The BBC said that this part of his contribution was included in an early programme script which was shown to the Complainants, but was subsequently removed. The BBC said that, however, did not lead to the conclusion that he was therefore making up the basic allegation that such abuse was known to have taken place and was an unreliable witness. In relation to what the reporter said she saw at the beach, the BBC said that the meaning of what she said was quite clear, that the beach was frequented both by Aurovilians and their families and by westerners who came to pick up young Indian children. The BBC said that the programme did not say the men were Aurovilian, nor did it say the beach belonged to Auroville, simply that many members of and visitors to Auroville relaxed there, which the BBC said was undeniably true. The BBC said that the reporter also took photographs of the incident she described which showed an elderly, bald, tattooed white man with a young Indian boy disappearing into a wooden hut. The BBC said that she did not follow them into the hut to see what they were doing but when she asked local people what they thought was happening they replied, “boyfriends”. The BBC said that it was quite plain that the intended meaning of the reporter’s commentary there was that the men in question were likely to have been tourists, given that was the clear context being set up by the script at that point.
In relation to Mr. Guigan, the BBC said that his remarks were framed before and after by commentary describing, in general terms, what might well be described as “the welfare and evolution” of Auroville which, as the Complainants said, was the basis of the interview he gave. The BBC said that there was no mention of child abuse to which Mr. Guigan’s comments were linked or proximate. The BBC said that it did not agree therefore that Mr. Guigan’s views were used out of context. The BBC said that it did not accept that Mr. Raj’s comments were confined to general observations that the Complainants, like everybody else, had to take seriously the universal problem of child abuse. The BBC said that in unused parts of the interview which was conducted with Mr Raj, it was quite clear that he had specific concerns about Auroville. The BBC said that, having established his sphere of work, Mr. Raj then went on to make clear that he had concerns about people staying at Auroville, even if they were not the sole focus of his concern. In relation to the presentation of two extracts from the Complainants’ intranet, the BBC said that the first extract complained of was from a posting written in 2003 by a resident who expressed serious concerns about a number of things, including child sexual abuse. The BBC said that it did not believe that it counted against the evidential value of this document that it was posted in 2003. The BBC said that in her next posting, on the following day, the resident conceded that “Auroville has a reputation for paedophilia”. The BBC said that the second extract, where the words “visa has been cancelled. He has…and deported” were visible, referred to a relative of an Auroville resident who had been staying in the community and, the programme was told, abusing children. However, the BBC said that the individual was not identified, and what was recorded in the posting applied equally to other Auroville residents. The BBC said that in correspondence with the reporter, the Complainants had conceded that two residents had their visas cancelled after being suspected by the authorities of child abuse. The BBC said that using the extract in this context gave rise to no unfairness. In relation to Mr. Keim, the BBC said that although it was not stated in the programme, the allegation that he continued to work with children in Auroville for a further five years was based upon the evidence of two of the witnesses identified in the programme, Mr. Batra and Mr. Nandhivarman, both of whom had been instrumental in having Mr. Keim’s case pursued by the police in Pondicherry. The BBC said that their testimony was corroborated by material posted on the Complainants’ intranet site, after the broadcast, by an Auroville member who took particular issue with the account Mr. Thieme gave to News night about how the organization had dealt with the case of Mr. Keim. The BBC said that Mr. Thieme’s position on the programme was that Mr. Keim had been at Auroville “for no more than eight months before he was discovered out and kicked out of Auroville” and the authorities informed. The BBC said that the Auroville member wrote: “… This was not what I experienced when I was in New Creation around the time that Didier (a paedophile who is now in prison in India) arrived there and started looking after a group of young boys. He was only asked to leave when the complaints against him reached a number that could not be ignored by the then Entry and other Groups. As far as I remember he was in New Creation for considerably longer than the eight months mentioned by Carel in the film”. The BBC said that the author of the posting had told the BBC that she was persuaded to remove it from the Complainants’ website on 25 May 2008, a few days after the broadcast of the programme. In relation to the question posed in the programme about “brazen” child abuse, the BBC said that the Complainants’ response to the allegations made in the programme was, by agreement with the Working Committee, made by Mr. Thieme through a pre-recorded interview at the end of the programme.
The BBC said that this was subject to only a very minor edit and that no material part of Mr. Thieme’s contribution was left out. The BBC said that there had never been a complaint from the Complainants about the way that the interview was edited. The BBC said that it was clear from the interview that the Complainants claimed that they did not tolerate child abuse. ii) The BBC said that the programme only used the word exploitation in the introduction and then it was used to describe the view of local Tamils. The BBC said that it was clear that the tenor of the evidence which the reporter obtained whilst investigating the story supported the claim that many Tamils did believe that the Complainants were exploiting them. The BBC said that during her investigation, the reporter was shown data which had been compiled internally and which showed the contrast between the numbers of Tamils from the local community who applied to become Aurovilians and the number who were admitted. The BBC said that the reporter also saw internal data which showed the length of time it would take for a local Tamil to complete the admission process – sometimes up to 15 years – and, by contrast, how a relatively wealthy European could complete the process, sometimes within months. The BBC said that this material, however, was shown to the reporter on a confidential basis and it was unable to make it available. The BBC said that the reporter also spoke to three Indians who were members of Auroville who were quite happy to be interviewed (albeit anonymously) to testify how hard it was to join Auroville if you were a local Tamil. The BBC said that the reporter could affirm that very many of the Tamils she spoke to gave the clear impression of being scared of upsetting the Complainants and that they explained that this was because their livelihoods often depended on the Complainants or because they felt vulnerable to acts of reprisal. The BBC said that one local villager had stated that the Complainants had put pressure on local people by “blackmailing them” to sell their land to them. The BBC said that “Sundrun” corroborated the claim that people were scared. He stated in the programme: “We depend on them for work. If these kinds of stories come out there would be death threats from Aurovilians and we have no protection from them. There are lots of things that happen like this inside Auroville”. The BBC said that the reporter also spent time with another witness who she asked for help and who agreed to accompany her in her car around Auroville. However, the BBC said that he was physically shaking during the whole experience and hid on the floor of the car when he saw Aurovilians. The BBC said that the reporter was left in no doubt that local Tamils were genuinely frightened of people from Auroville.
The BBC said that the Complainants did employ local people, but although this brought benefits to them, it also had the effect of making them vulnerable, and while they were paid better than workers in Pondicherry they still only received some £30 per month, which was substantially less than Aurovilians themselves received as a form of maintenance payment. The BBC said that the programme acknowledged the contribution that the Complainants had made to the surrounding community and referred specifically to work done to provide relief after the Tsunami. The BBC said that it did not believe it was accurate to say that the local Tamil population constituted 33% of Auroville residents. The BBC said it understood that the figure actually represented the total number of Indian members of Auroville, many of whom were from other areas of the country and were significantly richer and more educated than the local Tamil population. The BBC said that it was right to say that many of the local Tamils aspired to become members, but the BBC said that it was extremely hard for them to do so, not least because they were expected to have funds of their own in order to join.
iii) The BBC said that the programme did not use the phrase “anarchic sect” or anything resembling it. The BBC said it believed that reference to a period of “induction” carried no adverse implication whatsoever and certainly did not suggest that the community was an “anarchic sect”. The BBC said that it was common to refer to the process whereby an individual was introduced into a new job, for instance, as “induction”. The BBC said that reference to “divine anarchy” derived from a quote on the Complainants’ own website attributed to Mirra Alfassa (known to Aurovilians as “The Mother”) who founded the community. The BBC said that The Mother went on to spell out that “the ideal” was a situation “without fixed rules and laws”. This, the BBC said it believed, was perfectly consistent with the comment made in the programme that the Complainants aspired to “no rules, no leader”. The BBC said that it believed that, regardless of the organizational structures in place in Auroville, there was no doubt that it aspired ultimately to the ideal which was expressed by its own founder. The BBC said that it did not believe that it was unfair to represent the community as aspiring to that particular ideal. iv) The BBC said that the complaint did not set out why the minor alleged inaccuracies gave rise to unfairness. The BBC said it did not accept that any of them represented genuine inaccuracies and said it believed that they had all been disposed of in the BBC’s response to the Working Committee’s complaint to the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit. b) In summary, the BBC responded to the complaint that the programme broadcast material obtained by deception as follows: The BBC said that the only material obtained by deception was a very limited amount of background information supplied by the Complainants. The BBC said that the material upon which the allegations of child abuse and the Complainants’ inadequate response to this were based, was obtained openly and all material used was used with the informed consent of those who had provided it. The BBC said that when the reporter approached the Complainants she told them that she was working on a general report about Auroville because at that stage she was hoping to be able to film within the community and she took the view that this would have been rendered less likely if she had disclosed that she was investigating allegations of paedophilia. The BBC said that at that stage, the programme makers had to consider the possibility that early disclosure of the nature of the allegations might have resulted in a lack of co-operation from the Complainants or even measures being taken to thwart the investigation. The BBC said that it believed that, given the public interest in the allegations being investigated, the programme was entitled to protect its investigation by exercising prudence at that stage and that the level of deception was justified in those terms. However, the BBC said that it was never its intention to withhold from the Complainants the actual focus of the investigation to the extent that the community would have been denied a sufficient right of reply to the allegations. The BBC said that the deception at the early stage was intended solely to facilitate the preparation of the programme. The BBC said it believed that the subject matter of the programme – child abuse within the community and the inadequacies in the community’s response which may have left children at serious risk – was self-evidently in the public interest and the relatively minor degree of deception involved in bringing the story to public attention was justified. c) In summary, the BBC responded to the complaint that the Complainants had not been provided with a sufficient right of reply as follows: The BBC said that there was no requirement in Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code that allegations should be put at the earliest opportunity or during filming. The BBC said that it believed that the Complainants were given more than sufficient notice of the allegations being investigated to allow them to provide a considered response, as evidenced by email correspondence between the BBC and the Complainants and the BBC’s extended efforts to accommodate an interview with a representative of the Complainants. The BBC said that the fact that, closer to transmission, the Complainants were also provided with a script and copy of the programme, underlined the BBC’s commitment to provide a sufficient right of reply to what were very serious allegations. The BBC said that the email correspondence between the BBC and the Complainants made clear that the allegations were put clearly to the Complainants well before transmission of the programme and that the BBC made strenuous efforts to accommodate an interview with a representative of the Complainants in the programme. The BBC said that the first email from the reporter setting out the allegations which were being investigated was sent on 24 April 2008, nearly a month before the programme was broadcast. The BBC said that there followed an exchange of emails over the next three weeks where further requests for responses were made and information was provided by the Complainants. The BBC said that the reporter had asked in the first email for an interview with Dr Karan Singh, the Chairman of the Auroville Foundation. However, this invitation was declined. The BBC said that it was not true that it was only after strong protests from the Working Committee that the BBC agreed to conduct an interview. The BBC said that, during further discussions on 19 May 2008, it became clear that the Complainants were now interested in providing someone for interview for the programme, but that there appeared to have been internal confusion between Auroville’s Outreach Media1, the Working Committee and the International Board as to who would be dealing with the matter. At that stage, therefore, the BBC said that efforts resumed to try to provide facilities for a studio interview for Newsnight. On the morning of 20 May 2008, the BBC said that the script of the programme was sent to the Complainants and they replied with comments the following day. The BBC said that on the basis of the Complainants’ reply some minor amendments were made to the script. The BBC said that a recording of the programme was sent to the Complainants by email prior to transmission. The BBC said that it became evident by the afternoon of 21 May 2008 that a studio interview would not be logistically possible, and so alternative arrangements were made to interview Mr. Thieme by Skype for inclusion at the end of the programme. The BBC said that the interview covered the central issues in the programme: whether there was evidence for the allegations being made; the credibility of the witnesses; and the steps that the Complainants had taken to deal with allegations or suspicions of child abuse as they arose. The BBC said that Mr. Thieme responded at length to the questions put by Mr. Jeremy Paxman. The BBC said that given all of this, it could not agree that the Complainants were not given a sufficient right of reply. The BBC said that the main allegations were put to the Complainants well in advance of transmission, and the specific form in 1 The Auroville department set up to look after the logistics of visiting journalists, which the allegations would be made was clarified in the script and recording which were provided to the Complainants before transmission and before the interview with Mr. Thieme. The BBC said that it acknowledged that a studio interview would have been preferable to a telephone interview via Skype and that it used its best endeavors to arrange that but, because of the Complainants’ own internal confusion, it was left with insufficient time to do so. Nevertheless, the BBC said that the interview which took place provided sufficient opportunity for Mr. Thieme to respond fully to the allegations contained in the programme. The BBC’s Supplementary Statement As it appeared to Ofcom that there may be a fundamental misunderstanding between the parties about what the terms “Auroville” and “Aurovilian” covered, Ofcom asked the BBC to set out what it believed the definitions of Auroville and Aurovilians were. Were they a limited area with 2,000 residents over which the Complainants could exert some control, as the Complainants said, or a wider area and a wider group of people? The definition of Auroville the BBC said that the geographical definition of Auroville was a matter where the formal, legal position and the practical reality were not the same. The BBC said that the formal delineation of Auroville only began with the Auroville Act, which imposed a duty to provide a “Master Plan” for the Auroville project which would create a geographical definition. The BBC said that the Master Plan on the Complainants’ website showed that the population of Auroville exceeded by a considerable margin the 2,000 claimed by the Complainants, which referred only to Auroville residents – i.e. those that had been accepted into membership of the Auroville project. The BBC said that the Auroville boundaries had subsumed local villages whose residents did not fall into this category. The BBC said that a total of six villages were included in the central Auroville area, where some 8,000 local people lived. The BBC said that Auroville had proceeded to extend its limits by purchasing additional land, some of which was contiguous with the original area, and some of which was not. Locally, because of this growth, the BBC said that the area considered to be “Auroville” was much wider than the more narrowly-defined area over which the Complainants said they had jurisdiction, and the postal address “Auroville” was used to cover an area even wider than the land owned by Auroville. The BBC said that it was misleading to argue that the definition of Auroville’s limits should be confined to the central area. The BBC said that it believed that a broader, less legalistic understanding of the geographical limits of Auroville conformed more to the practical reality and that no unfairness necessarily attached to those parts of the programme complained of where that broader definition informed the allegations being made. Auroville Beach the BBC said that the issue of jurisdiction over Auroville beach did not rest upon determining legal ownership or whether it fell within a particular definition of Auroville. The BBC said that it believed that, while it was unarguably the case that the beach was publicly owned and not legally owned by Auroville, the Complainants were being disingenuous when they claimed that they had no jurisdiction over it. The BBC said the facts were that though they did not own it, the Complainants had a proprietary attitude towards the beach in question (situated in front of the Repos restaurant, which was owned by Auroville), and treated it as their own. The BBC said that it was on the section of beach controlled, if not owned, by Auroville, that the reporter observed a man taking a young boy into nearby huts. The BBC said that it was not clear whether the huts were on public land or the Repos land belonging to Auroville, but the man was observed with the boy on the section of beach to which the BBC said that the Complainants attempted to control access. The BBC said that a second European man with a very young local boy accompanying him was seen leaving the beach by the Repos exit, suggesting that he was highly likely to have been an Auroville member or guest. The BBC said that it did not believe therefore, that the fact that Auroville did not legally own the beach rendered the programme’s report of what was seen there unfair.
Mr. Keim
The BBC referred to a copy of a note which it said was provided by the Auroville Entry Group (which regulated the admission of Newcomers to Auroville) to Mr. Batra in 2004. The BBC said that the note was provided to Mr. Batra at a time when the Secretary of Auroville had instructed Working Committee members to co-operate with Mr. Batra in investigating the matter of Mr. Keim. The BBC said that the note, which the BBC said was drawn from the Entry Group’s file on Mr. Keim, revealed that: · Evidence of his activities with children first came to light between April and September 1996, yet Mr. Keim was granted a further visa extension (supported by the Auroville Visa Service) in September 1996. · Despite what was known about him, Mr. Keim’s “Newcomer process” was not terminated until April 1997. The BBC said that during that time he was allowed to carry on living in central Auroville, where children were put at risk by his presence. · Had the authorities been informed when the allegations first came to light, it was inconceivable that Mr. Keim would have been granted a visa extension in September 1996. The BBC said that despite the Complainants’ claim that they “informed the RRO” in September 1996, there was actually no record in the Auroville note that this happened, then or later. The BBC said that it did not dispute that Mr. Keim lived in Pondicherry after he was asked to leave Auroville. However, the BBC said that he was able to freely visit Auroville without any efforts being made by the Complainants to exclude him and frequently did so. The BBC said that it acknowledged that the facts did not conclusively demonstrate that Mr. Keim continued to have contact with children in Auroville, as stated in the programme. However, the BBC said that it did not believe that any unfairness arose from that, as it was immaterial whether the children whom he had continued contact with were in Auroville or not.
The Complainants’ comments on the BBC’s case
In summary, the Complainants responded to the BBC’s comments in relation to the head of complaint that the Complainants were portrayed unfairly as follows: i) Rampant child abuse In response to the BBC’s statement that the word “rampant” did not appear in the programme, the Complainants said that a programme could not be judged only by the exact words that were used in it and that what mattered was what the viewers took home. · The Complainants said that Mr. Batra was not excluded from Auroville because he tried to have the matter of child abuse addressed. They said that he had never contacted them on the matter of perceived child sexual abuse, nor had he ever campaigned publicly for the Complainants to take the issue seriously and investigate allegations. The Complainants said that Mr. Batra had not been involved in the case of Mr. Keim which was dealt with by them in 1996/1997, long before Mr. Batra came to Auroville as a guest. Nor was he involved in a case dealt with by the Complainants in October/November 2004.
The Complainants said that Mr. Nandhivarman had never contacted them on the matter of perceived child sexual abuse and that he only started his attacks on the Complainants in 2008 after the BBC broadcast the programme on Auroville. · The Complainants said that they believed that the witness Shiva was unreliable and was trying to “satisfy” the reporter. The Complainants said that another primary school existed a stones-throw from New Creation School where parents could have moved their children if they had had concerns. · The Complainants said that they did not accept the reporter’s statements that other witnesses had corroborated the allegations made. The Complainants said that in relation to what went on at the beach, they considered that the opinion of local people on what they thought was happening were irrelevant. The Complainants said that from the points made in the BBC’s statement, they concluded that the BBC’s allegation that there was a “serious problem of child abuse in Auroville involving some residents of Auroville” was incorrect. The Complainants said that the BBC had not proven there was a serious problem of child abuse in Auroville which had not been effectively addressed by the Complainants. The Complainants said that over the last 15 years they had responsibly dealt with five cases of alleged or proven paedophilia. For a community of now 2,000 people that attracted thousands of guests a year, they considered that the figure did not amount to a serious problem of child abuse. In relation to the first intranet extract, the Complainants said that the BBC omitted to refer to the opinions of other Aurovilians on the statement, e.g. of one who responded that “The petition has no substance at all and adds to a depressing chain of rumours…” or of another who wrote “I hope that you have the correct evidence to back up your assertions”. The Complainants asked why was the opinion of one single resident of Auroville regarded by the BBC as the truth, while the comments on his posting by fellow residents were ignored. The Complainants said they disagreed with the BBC’s statement about the second intranet posting. They said that the posting was taken from a report of the Auroville Security Service. The individual was fully identified in that report and was, as far as the Complainants were aware, never involved with paedophilia but was roaming the area in a mentally unstable state. The Complainants said they objected to the BBC’s statement that “what was recorded in the posting applied equally to other Auroville residents”. The Complainants said that the BBC had misread an email from Outreach Media and that no allegations of child abuse had been made against one resident and that the other had been the subject of false allegations investigated and determined to be unfounded by the Complainants. In relation to Mr. Keim, the Complainants pointed out that the case of Mr. Keim was more than 12 years old (more than 11 years when the reporter made the programme). The Complainants said that the BBC’s statement that “Keim was allowed to work in Auroville for another five years after he was expelled” implied that Mr. Keim would have traveled the (dangerous) road from Pondicherry to Auroville for a period of five years i.e. from 1997-2002, to teach at a place he was expelled from. The Complainants said that defied all logic. The Complainants said in relation to the length of time Mr. Keim was in Auroville, in fact Mr. Keim joined Auroville on 14 December 1995, when he was granted Newcomer status, that status was revoked in September 1996, i.e. a few days more than the eight months Mr. Thieme mentioned in the programme. The Complainants said that the observation by the Aurovilian that Mr. Keim stayed longer was basically correct, in that Mr. Keim, after attempts to come to an agreement with him were unsuccessful, only left Auroville in April 1997. However, the Complainants said that the Aurovilian had not corroborated the statements of Mr. Batra and Mr. Nandhivarman that Mr. Keim was allowed to work in Auroville for another five years after he was expelled. ii) The Complainants said that they did not believe that the reporter obtained evidence to support the claim that “many local people say the place [Auroville] exploits them”. In relation to the number of Tamil villagers joining Auroville, the Complainants said that one of the conditions for living in Auroville was that people had to find a place to live. In the last 10 years, this had become a serious problem. The Complainants said that many people from the local villages lacked the financial means to contribute to building an apartment and the Complainants did not have the means to offer many apartments “for free”. That was one of the reasons why the Complainants had been hesitant to admit people from the surrounding villages in recent years.
The Complainants said that another reason was that the Entry Group had often questioned the motivation of many people from the villages wanting to join Auroville, as quite a few had no other objective than to increase their material prosperity and status. The Complainants said that the Entry Group included Tamil Aurovilians, who often hailed from the same villages as the people who wished to join. The Complainants said that they did not maintain separate statistics of where Indian Aurovilians come from, however by July 2009 Auroville had 2,120 residents, of which 904 were Indians. The Complainants said that a reliable estimate showed that of those 904 Indians, about 700 were Tamils, showing a preponderance of Tamil Aurovilians in the Auroville population. Referring to the interview with the anonymous villager, the Complainants said that it was quite reasonable to request the villager to sell the land to them if the land was located in the city or greenbelt area marked in the Master Plan of the future city if the villager was planning to sell the land. The Complainants said that it was illogical to even assume that they would take a villager to court if s/he didn’t want to sell land to them. The Complainants had no legal grounds to acquire the land mentioned in the Master Plan. The Master Plan had no legal power whatsoever, it was just a plan, and the Complainants would not stand any chance of success in court. iii) The Complainants said that the programme gave the impression that they were an anarchic sect and that this was communicated to the BBC by many people. The Complainants said that the BBC had ignored the condition that their original founder, The Mother, had made to achieving divine anarchy, namely that people need to be conscious of their psychic being and guided by it and that the ego’s authority and influence must disappear. Only under those conditions was divine anarchy a possibility. iv) The Complainants said that they considered the number of inaccuracies in the programme was so large that it justified the use of the word unfairness. They also considered it was unfair for the BBC to have broadcast the programme without correcting many inaccuracies and mistakes that had been pointed out by the Complainants. c) In summary, the Complainants responded to the BBC’s statement about no appropriate opportunity to respond as follows: The Complainants said that the time given to the Working Committee to comment on the transcript – less than 24 hours – was not sufficient The Complainants said that they did not agree that the reporter was open about the allegations a month before the programme was broadcast. They said that it was only after the reporter was back in England, on 24 April 2008, less than a month before the broadcast, that she first requested Outreach Media to respond to allegations of paedophilia in Auroville and that the Complainants didn’t scrutinize their members or their visitors. The Complainants said that the reporter was simply asking for more information, which she was given by Outreach Media. There was no statement such as “I have decided to make a programme on paedophilia in Auroville” and it was only during the correspondence that the Outreach Media team started to get inkling that the reporter had deceived them about the true purpose of her programme.
The Complainants said that they did not agree that there was any internal confusion. The issue was that most members of the Working Committee were on holiday or were going on holiday when the issue came to a head. The Complainants’ comments on the BBC’s supplementary statement. In summary, the Complainants responded to the BBC’s supplementary statement as follows:
Definition of Auroville
The Complainants said that the BBC’s submission that the inclusion of the villages in the Master Plan showed that the population of Auroville exceeded by a considerable margin the 2,000 claimed by the Complainants was a misunderstanding of the situation. The Complainants said that the villagers lived their own lives on their own land and in their own houses, which had never been part of or relatable to Auroville as defined in the Auroville Act. Furthermore, the Complainants said that the Auroville Act specified that a resident was to be registered in the Register of Residents maintained by the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation. The Complainants said that none of the villagers living in the villages mentioned in the Master Plan were registered in the Register of Residents, except those who had made the decision to join Auroville and had been admitted as residents. The Complainants said that Auroville did not own anywhere near all the land specified in the Master Plan. As much as 176 acres in the actual city area and approximately 2,000 acres in the encircling greenbelt area were owned by people from the surrounding villages. The Complainants said that it was incorrect for the BBC to say that access to privately-owned land could only be obtained via land owned by Auroville. The Complainants said that villagers had normal access to their land and that most roads in the Auroville area were public and did not belong to Auroville. The Complainants said that they could only account for what happened on the land and in the houses owned by them. They said that they had no control over, and nothing to say about what happened inside the villages, on village-owned land, on Government-owned land or on any public beach or road. The “Auroville” beach The Complainants said that Repos was a piece of land owned by Auroville which was located adjacent to the beach and was inhabited by residents of Auroville. They said it offered limited facilities to Aurovilians and Auroville guests on their way to and from the beach and those security guards posted near the Repos entrance gates checked if people were Aurovilians or guests of Auroville. The Complainants said that as hooliganism was on the increase, and as certain Indian men liked to harass foreign women dressed in beachwear, it had become necessary to install a guard on the beach. The Complainants said that such measures did not in any way imply that they controlled the beach. The Complainants said that non-Aurovilians and non-Auroville guests could walk around the perimeter of Repos (two minutes) to access the same stretch of beach in front of Repos or go to other parts of the beach. The Complainants had no authority to prevent anybody from using the beach in front of Repos, and as the BBC said, that often happened. The Complainants said that as they did not have a proprietary attitude towards the beach, the BBC’s suggestion that that attitude made the Complainants accountable for what happened on the beach was wrong. Mr. Keim The Complainants said that they had not found in the files of the Working Committee or in the files of the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation any instruction from the Secretary to the Working Committee to co-operate with Mr. Batra in this matter. In addition, they said that the note provided by the BBC was at certain points incorrect and did not contain full data. The Complainants therefore questioned whether Mr. Batra had received the note from the Entry Group in 2004. The Complainants said that the BBC had drawn conclusions from the note that was not borne out by the contents of the note. The Complainants said that the note did not show any evidence that Mr. Keim’s activities with children came to light between April and September 1996, it only stated that Mr. Keim was granted Newcomer status on 14 December 1995 and that a six month extension letter was issued to the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka in April 1996. The Complainants said that Mr. Keim had arrived in India on a one year visa valid until 26 October 1996 and, in accordance with the then current regulations of the Government of India, the Visa Service of Auroville issued recommendations for a visa extension six months before the expiry of the visa. In the case of Mr. Keim, that was April 1996. The Complainants said that the note wrongly stated that Mr. Keim’s visa extension was refused in September 1996. His visa extension was granted until 25 April 1997 and in September 1996; Mr. Keim’s Newcomer process was terminated. The Complainants said that attempts were made to come to an agreement with Mr. Keim about his attitude to children. Pending the discussions, the Visa Service of Auroville issued, in October 1996, a second letter of recommendation for another six month extension (again six months before the expiry of the visa). The Complainants said that the attempts to come to an agreement with Mr. Keim failed and the note specified the reasons why. Mr. Keim left Auroville on 8 April 1997 and this was communicated by the Entry Group to the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation and to the RRO one day later. However, the Complainants said that Mr. Keim’s second visa extension had been granted in the meantime until 25 October 1997. The Complainants said that they were not aware why the Pondicherry authorities did not take action against Mr. Keim, or how Mr. Keim managed to continue living in India for many years after the Indian authorities were informed that he had left Auroville. The Complainants also noted that in the BBC’s supplementary statement it blamed them for Mr. Keim traveling through Auroville after he had been expelled. The Complainants said that since most of the roads that passed through Auroville were public and Auroville had no fence around it, it was possible that Mr. Keim had traveled through or around Auroville at some point in time after he was expelled. The Complainants said that in their files was a note from a former Secretary to the Auroville Foundation to the RRO dated 20 September 1999, which stated:
“Dear Sir,
This is regarding the case of Mr. Didier Keim, French national, who left Auroville on 08-04-1997. We have learned that this individual is still staying in the vicinity of Auroville. His presence is not desirable as he is suspected to be a paedophile. We have received reports from the Visitors’ Centre of Auroville that he was seen in this area with some local children. We request you to take urgent steps those persons are not allowed to stay in and around Auroville / India and he may not be given visa to enter India again after he is deported”. The Complainants said that the letter was clear evidence that they did pursue efforts to get Mr. Keim evicted from India long after he had already been expelled from Auroville.
BBC’s response to the Complainants’ comments on the BBC’s case
In summary, the BBC responded to the Complainants’ comments as follows: Rampant child abuse The BBC said that it had nothing further to add to its statement in relation to this point. · The BBC said that Mr. Batra denied the claims made by the Complainants. The BBC said that when Mr. Batra was declared persona non grata by the Complainants in December 2004 the reason given was indeed that stated by the Complainants. However, Mr. Batra believed that was merely a pretext to remove him after he had assisted an individual in a legal action against an Auroville member and had raised issues of child abuse which the Complainants were reluctant to acknowledge and deal with. · The BBC said that it was plain from the fact that Mr. Nandhivarman was a source of information and contacts for the reporter that his concerns about child abuse at Auroville must have predated the broadcast of the programme, as indeed they did. The BBC said that the fact that he had not been writing a public blog on the issue did not mean that he did not have serious concerns. The BBC also said that the fact that Mr. Nandhivarman was publicly criticizing the Complainants did not undermine his status as a witness, given that the testimony which he provided to the programme was corroborated by other witnesses. · In relation to Mr. Keim, the BBC said that it believed that the case of Mr. Keim clearly demonstrated that the Complainants’ approach to dealing with allegations of child abuse had been open to criticism, and had placed children at risk. The BBC said that it had now obtained, from the criminal court in Pondicherry, copies of documents gathered during the police investigation into the case of Mr. Keim in 2002. From those documents, the BBC said that it become clear that the Complainants’ response to Mr. Keim’s case had, at every significant stage, been wholly inadequate. On the issue of whether Mr. Keim continued to have access to children in Auroville for a further five years, the BBC said it had nothing to add to except to reiterate its belief, which was strengthened by the documentation from the court, that the Complainants’ behaviour was so irresponsible and reckless that no unfairness arose from any discrepancy in the time periods during which Mr. Keim continued to be allowed to pose a risk to children in Auroville. The Complainants’ final response in respect of Mr. Keim only In summary the Complainants responded to the BBC’s comments in relation to Mr. Keim as follows: The Complainants said that the BBC had not provided any evidence and therefore had no justification for its innuendo that they handled any other cases of alleged paedophilia in the same way as the BBC believed the Complainants handled Mr. Keim’s case. The Complainants noted that the BBC had acknowledged that the “five years” statement in relation to Mr. Keim was incorrect. The Complainants said that the BBC’s allegations about Mr. Keim had made it necessary to do a complete investigation into the files of the Auroville Residents’ Service, the Entry Group, the Auroville Archives and the Auroville Foundation. The Complainants provided a chronology of Mr. Keim’s stay in Auroville and each point of the chronology was supported by a document. The Complainants said that the chronology showed that Mr. Keim first came to Auroville as a tourist on 1 December 1994 and that he did not leave Auroville because of allegations of paedophilia. The Complainants said that nowhere in the files could the words paedophilia or child sexual abuse be found. The Complainants said that Mr. Keim left because he failed to honour an agreement reached between him, the Entry Group and an ad-hoc group. The Complainants said that only in a letter of 20 September 1999 from the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation to the RRO, was there reference to rumoured paedophile activities of Mr. Keim. Complaining about the presence of Mr. Keim in the vicinity of Auroville, stating that “his presence is not desirable as he is suspected to be a paedophile”, the Secretary asked the RRO to take urgent steps to see that such persons were not allowed to stay in and around Auroville/India and that he may not be given a visa to enter India again after he was deported. The Complainants said that the letter was written two years and five months after Mr. Keim left Auroville on 8 April 1997. The BBC’s final response in respect of Mr. Keim In summary, the BBC responded to the Complainants’ comments in relation to Mr. Keim as follows:
In response to the Complainants’ statement that the BBC was not justified in suggesting that the Complainants handled any other cases in the same way as Mr. Keim’s case because it had provided no evidence for the existence of other cases, the BBC attached a statement from a former teacher at the New Creation School, who described how the Complainants responded when she raised concerns of “highly inappropriate” behavior by a teacher at the school. The BBC said it believed that the statement spoke for itself.
The case of Mr. Keim: The BBC said that the Complainants’ latest claims in respect of Mr. Keim’s case were astonishing. The BBC said that it followed, that the Complainants could not claim to have been unfairly treated by the programme where allegations made by the programme relied upon what was presented as fact by the Complainants themselves. The BBC said that in response, the Complainants now claimed that they couldn’t have taken any other action because they did not, after all, have any idea that he was abusing children. The BBC said that it believed that this argument was wholly specious. The Complainants’ final response in respect of the former teacher only in response to the statement of the former teacher, the Complainants attached five statements which they said showed that her statement, as evidence of other cases, could not be sustained. Decision Ofcom’s statutory duties include the application, in the case of all television and radio services, of standards which provide adequate protection to members of the public and all other persons from unfair treatment and unwarranted infringement of privacy in, or in the making of, programmes included in such services. In carrying out its duties, Ofcom has regard to the need to secure that the application of these standards is in the manner that best guarantees an appropriate level of freedom of expression. Ofcom is also obliged to have regard, in all cases, to the principles under which regulatory activities should be transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent and targeted only at cases in which action is needed. In reaching its decision, Ofcom considered all the relevant material provided by both parties. This included a recording and transcript of the programme as broadcast, both parties’ written submissions and supporting material. a) i) Ofcom first considered the complaint that the Complainants were unfairly portrayed because the programme wrongly and unfairly suggested that paedophilia was “rampant” in Auroville and that “nothing” was being done about it. Ofcom considered whether the programme makers’ actions ensured that the programme as broadcast avoided unjust or unfair treatment of the Complainants, as set out in Rule 7.1 of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code (“the Code”). In particular, Ofcom considered whether the programme makers took reasonable care to satisfy themselves that material facts were not presented, disregarded or omitted in a way that was unfair to the Complainants (as outlined in Practice 7.9 of the Code). Ofcom noted that the BBC accepted that the programme had suggested that there was a serious problem of child abuse involving some residents of Auroville which had not been effectively addressed by the Complainants, but that it did not accept that the programme suggested paedophilia was “rampant” in Auroville or that “nothing” was being done about it. Having viewed the programme as broadcast, Ofcom considered that “rampant” was too strong a characterization of the allegations of child abuse reported by the programme. In Ofcom’s view, the programme presented allegations that there was a serious and widespread problem of child abuse in Auroville. In addition, Ofcom considered that the suggestion that “nothing” was being done by the Complainants about child abuse in Auroville was not made by the programme. Instead, Ofcom considered that the allegations presented in the programme were that the Complainants’ response to the issue of child abuse in Auroville was ineffective and inadequate. Ofcom noted that these were relatively fine distinctions, that the allegations presented were of a serious nature and that the BBC did not seek to rely solely on the precise wording of the complaint, but instead presented evidence addressing the issue of paedophilia and the Complainants’ response to it.Ofcom therefore proceeded to consider whether the Complainants were unfairly portrayed because the programme suggested that child abuse was a serious and widespread problem in Auroville and that the Complainants’ response to it was ineffective and inadequate. The parties submitted a substantial amount of material to Ofcom including material gathered after the broadcast of the programme. It should be noted, however, that Ofcom’s role was not to establish whether child abuse was in fact a serious and widespread problem in Auroville or whether the response to it by the Complainants was ineffective and inadequate. Ofcom’s role was to determine whether, in broadcasting the allegations, the programme makers took reasonable care not to present, disregard or omit material facts in a way that was unfair to the Complainants.
The Code recognizes the freedom of broadcasters to broadcast matters of genuine public interest and seeks to ensure that, in presenting serious allegations, they take reasonable care not to do so in a way that causes unfairness to individuals or organizations. In this case, Ofcom recognized that it was in the public interest to report on allegations such as those covered by the programme, but that this needed to be consistent with the requirement of fairness and other requirements of the Code. The programme presented a number of allegations regarding the Complainants and items of evidence, including statements from individuals and extracts from the Complainants’ intranet. The Complainants’ rejection of the allegations was noted at certain points in the report itself and more comprehensively in the broadcast interview by Mr. Jeremy Paxman of Mr. Carel Thieme at the end of the report. The key items of evidence and the manner in which they were presented are set out below:
Interview with Mr. Raj Batra : In summary, Mr. Batra, a former guest in Auroville, said in the programme that after villagers complained to him about allegations of child abuse by Aurovilians and visiting tourists he had spoken to people in Auroville about it and had been asked whether the allegations concerned the children of villagers or of Aurovilians. Given it was the former, Mr. Batra said they said “then it’s nothing to do with us”. He also noted that Auroville was “the kind of environment in which every parasite is going to turn up and get away with a hell of a lot of abuse and exploitation” and was in an underdeveloped part of India with weak institutions, with the clear implication that the Complainants were not fulfilling their obligations in that context. The Complainants stated that Mr. Batra had a grudge against them and also stated in their response to the BBC after receipt of the proposed transcript of the programme that Mr. Batra was asked to leave Auroville for making false representations about his passport and background and due to complaints about “anti-social and destructive behaviour”. The BBC stated that Mr. Batra considered this to have been a pretext and that he believed the real reason for his removal related to his complaints about child abuse in the community. Ofcom noted that Mr. Batra and the Complainants disagreed about the reasons for his departure from Auroville and the motives for his statements in the programme. However, the fact that there was a dispute about Mr. Batra’s motives was not in itself necessarily a reason not to include his allegations. Mr. Thieme in his interview at the end of the report made it clear that the Complainants disputed the substance of Mr. Batra’s allegations. He stated: “I do not accept the statements which have been made in the … transcript which we were shown this morning … I think that the script was full of inaccuracies, innuendos and accusations without being substantiated in any way”. “Well the question is why … any of those witnesses haven’t come to any of the relevant authorities … None of them have ever bothered to complain, so what’s the value of these kind of witnesses?”. Ofcom noted that the reporter’s comment that “He [Mr. Batra] left [Auroville] after villagers complained to him about child abuse from Aurovilians and also visiting tourists”, took at face value the reasons given by Mr. Batra for his leaving Auroville, even though the Complainants’ response to the script made it clear those reasons were disputed. Ofcom considered that there could have been merit in the BBC including a statement in the programme that the Complainants disputed not just the substance of Mr. Batra’s allegations but also his motives for making them. However, Ofcom considered, given that it was clear from the programme that Mr. Batra had left Auroville and was now making serious allegations about the Complainants, viewers would have been in a position to decide what weight to attach to Mr. Batra’s contributions to the programme. As a result, Ofcom did not consider that the absence of a qualifying statement in the circumstances of the programme as a whole meant that the broadcaster had presented, disregarded or omitted material facts in relation to Mr. Batra’s statements in a way that was unfair to the Complainants.
Interview with Mr. N Nandhivarman
In summary, Mr. Nandhivarman, a local politician, said paedophiles were not necessarily Aurovilians, but often tourists who heard about the availability of sex and came to stay in Auroville as visitors. He expressed concern that many were slipping through the net as the local police turned a blind eye and some people were simply being deported from Auroville. Following the allegations about Mr. Keim, he stated that “until a man is publicly exposed, they [the Complainants] shield him” before “technically” expelling him. The Complainants stated that Mr. Nandhivarman had a history of antipathy towards them and also stated in their immediate response to the BBC on receiving the transcript of the programme that the “shielding” statement was absolutely incorrect. The Complainants also said that Mr. Nandhivarman was not referring to the situation in Auroville, but in nearby Pondicherry where the police may be turning a blind eye and where Auroville had no power to do anything about paedophilia. Ofcom considered that Mr. Nandhivarman’s status as a local politician (rather than an eyewitness for example) was made clear in the programme and that viewers would have understood his role in making the comments that he did. It was clear from the nature of Mr. Nandhivarman’s comments that there was tension in his relationship with Auroville, whether because of the issue he referred to or for other reasons. In the circumstances, Ofcom considered that even if the programme had explicitly stated that Mr. Nandhivarman had antipathy for the Complainants it would not have had a material effect upon viewers’ understanding of his comments. As a result, Ofcom did not consider that in relation to the comments of Mr. Nandhivarman in the programme, material facts had been presented, disregarded or omitted in a way that resulted in unfairness to the Complainants.
Interview with an anonymous villager, “Sundrun”
In summary, Sundrun, the name applied to an anonymous local villager, said he had been abused from the age of 10 by an Aurovilian white man and that abuse was still occurring involving other children at a beach near Auroville and areas around it. It was clear from the fact that the programme depicted Sundrun as an adult and his use of the past tense when describing his own experience that the events described happened some time ago. The Complainants, in their immediate response to the BBC on receiving the transcript of the programme, expressed sympathy for Sundrun’s personal situation but said that had he informed the Complainants of the allegations, the offender would have been removed from Auroville and a police case would have been started immediately. In their complaint to Ofcom, the Complainants claimed that the programme had suggested that Sundrun had reported the abuse to the Complainants who had taken no action. Ofcom did not consider the programme implied Sundrun had reported his allegations to the Complainants at the time. As a result, in Ofcom’s view, the broadcaster took reasonable care not to present, disregard or omits material facts in relation to Sundrun’s personal situation in a way that resulted in unfairness to the Complainants. Interview with an anonymous villager, “Shiva” Shiva, the name applied to an anonymous local villager, stated in the programme: “Some children here are currently being abused, particularly in the New Creation School. Men come in and ask them to stay after school and have sex with them, giving food and paying them. The children get used to this life, to the money and they’re going back for more”. The Complainants, in their immediate response to the BBC on receiving the transcript of the programme (which featured the more specific allegation by Shiva that “one in five” children were being abused) stated that it was untrue and unimaginable that one in five children were being abused. The Complainants said that the management would not tolerate it and that no parent would send their child to such a school given there were other schools in the area. In addition, prior to broadcast a number of other people associated with Auroville wrote to the Editor of Newsnight expressing disbelief at this allegation including the Secretary of Auroville International UK, a registered charity. Ofcom noted that as a result of these submissions, the BBC removed the reference to “one in five children” from the transcript and this element of the allegation was not included in the programme as broadcast. In respect of the general allegation of child abuse that was included, Ofcom recognized that Shiva was not speaking from first-hand experience and that he remained anonymous which made it harder for Auroville to respond in full to his allegations. However, the programme did not suggest Shiva was relaying firsthand experience of abuse, and Ofcom considered there was clear justification for anonymity given the tensions between the Complainants and others living locally (whether or not the allegations about fear of reprisals considered below were in fact well founded). The fact that the Complainants denied Shiva’s more general allegations was made clear in the programme in Mr. Thieme’s interview (see above) and Ofcom considered that the BBC had taken reasonable care not to present, disregard or omit material facts in relation to Shiva’s allegations in a way that resulted in unfairness to the Complainants.
Interview with Mr. Gilles Guigan
Mr. Guigan stated in the programme: “Basically the project of Auroville is the ideal society and any society can only reflect the quality of its members. You cannot have an ideal society with no ideal members”. The Complainants considered Mr. Guigan’s comments were used out of context to support the programme’s allegations regarding child abuse in Auroville. Mr. Guigan himself provided a statement, via the Complainants, in support of the complaint stating his objections to the manner in which the reporter secured an interview and the fact his interview was used in a programme reporting serious allegations about the Complainants which he did not support. Ofcom considered it was clear from the context in which Mr. Guigan’s comments appeared in the programme as broadcast that they did not relate specifically to allegations of child abuse made earlier in the programme, but referred to the aspiration of Auroville to become an ideal society. In the circumstances, Ofcom did not consider that Mr. Guigan’s comments were presented out of context and did not result in unfairness to the Complainants.
Mr. Ram Kumar Raj
Mr. Raj stated in the programme: “The sexual abuse issue has to be taken seriously by this Foundation, Auroville Foundation, they should scrutinize people stepping into their Foundation or visiting their Foundation, or they want to stay at their Foundation, make it very clear their intention – that if you are coming to our Foundation, you should follow the things and we will be watching you”. Mr. Raj said, in a letter to the Working Committee after the programme was broadcast (included in the Complainants’ submission to Ofcom), that his broadcast statement was taken out of context and that he did not have specific concerns about child abuse in Auroville, but had instead told the reporter that Auroville, like everyone else in the area, had to take the problem seriously and scrutinize visitors staying there. The BBC indicated that from his interview it was quite clear that Mr. Raj had concerns directed specifically at issues of child abuse in and around Auroville itself. Ofcom viewed the unedited interview with Mr. Raj and noted that, as the programme said, part of his work related to educating children about child abuse and how to avoid it. It appeared to Ofcom that Mr. Raj’s concern about child abuse stemmed from the increase in tourism to the Pondicherry and Auroville areas which he said had attracted a percentage of tourists who were involved in child abuse. In Ofcom’s view, during the interview, both Mr. Raj and the reporter made little distinction between Pondicherry and Auroville, and the reporter stated in the interview “well they are almost interlinked”. It was clear that Mr. Raj was aware that a number of tourists booked accommodation in the area via the Complainants’ website and Ofcom noted that when he was asked specifically about what Auroville could do about the child abuse problem, he said that the Complainants should scrutinize the tourists they attracted more thoroughly and warn them that they would be doing so. The issue for Ofcom was whether the programme took reasonable care to ensure the extract of the interview with Mr. Raj was presented in a way that was fair to the Complainants. Ofcom accepted that Mr. Raj was concerned about child abuse in the Pondicherry and Auroville area rather than only in Auroville. However, Ofcom did not consider that his broadcast remarks about steps the Complainants could take about the issue were presented out of context, or gave an exaggerated view of Mr. Raj’s concerns about Auroville as expressed in the unedited interview. In Ofcom’s view, Mr. Raj’s concerns were not presented in the programme as relating only to Auroville, but simply relating to the steps he would like to see Auroville take to address the wider issue of child abuse by foreign visitors to the area. In those circumstances, Ofcom did not consider there was any unfairness to the Complainants.
Comments of the reporter
The reporter said that she herself had seen, in the space of two hours at a beach near Auroville, two separate men with two young Indian boys, one of whom was taken to a beach hut. She said that, when she asked locals what was going on, she had been told “boyfriends”. She prefaced her personal observations with the comment that, “This is the beach where Aurovilians hang out with family and friends. It’s also the beach where westerners come to pick up young Indian children”.
The Complainants stated that what the reporter said she saw was not evidence that child abuse took place on the beach and also stated in their immediate response to the BBC on receiving the transcript of the programme that the reporter’s comments implied Aurovilians were the abusers, that the reporter had “malicious intent” and that the beach was 5 km outside Auroville, was a public beach accessible by anyone and was not under their control. The reporter presented herself as a witness and described what she said she saw. Ofcom did not agree that the reporter’s comments implied Aurovilians themselves or their guests were the abusers. In Ofcom’s view, the clear implication was that child abuse was taking place in the beach huts and that was a fair implication to draw from what the reporter said she witnessed. The parties agreed that the beach described by the reporter was not owned by Auroville and presented significant amounts of evidence regarding its status. In essence, the issue was whether the BBC ought to have appreciated that it had so little connection with Auroville that it should not have presented the reporter’s comments as having any bearing on whether child abuse was a serious and widespread problem in Auroville and whether the Complainants’ response to it was effective or adequate. Ofcom noted that the programme did not state that the beach was owned by Auroville; merely that it was used by Aurovilians and other westerners. However, the reporter asked while still at the beach, “so is Auroville doing enough to address a practice that seems so brazen?”, which indicated to viewers that the Complainants should do something in response to activities which the reporter alleged happened quite openly on the beach frequented by Aurovilians and guests as well as others. Ofcom considered that the issue of legal ownership of the beach did not render the inclusion of the reporter’s description of what she had seen at the beach unfair. In this context, the question raised by the reporter as to whether the Complainants’ response was sufficient did not result in unfairness to the Complainants. Extracts from the Complainants’ intranet The programme referred to postings on the Complainants’ intranet. The reporter stated: “One posting openly refers to worries about abuse at the New Creation School where village children are taught”. Ofcom noted that the posting was dated 2003 and stated that there had been such problems in the past. The Complainants stated in response to the BBC on receiving the transcript of the programme that the intranet extract showed deep concern about the possibility of sexual abuse and that due to the problems with Mr. Keim; the Complainants took the prevention of abuse seriously.
Over scrolling footage of another posting from the Complainants’ intranet “visa has been cancelled. He has … and deported” the reporter stated: “Auroville admits that allegations of sexual abuse have been made against several of their members. Some have been told they can no longer work in India. But they say such allegations are unfounded”. In an email dated 16 May 2008 in response to an enquiry from the reporter, the Complainants stated that the man to whom the posting referred had no connection with Auroville, but had been causing trouble in the area. The BBC stated that the posting referred to an individual who had not been identified, but that the information applied equally to other Auroville residents and that as a result the posting did not give rise to unfairness. The Complainants stated in response to the BBC on receiving the transcript of the programme, but not having seen the footage of the second intranet posting, that while allegations had been made of sexual abuse against Aurovilians, no proof had been offered and individuals had been advised to leave and reported to the RRO in Pondicherry demonstrating effective action. Ofcom considered that the programme made it clear that the Complainants considered the allegations to be unfounded, but also that they had advised individuals to leave in the past.
In Ofcom’s view, even though the first extract from the Complainants’ intranet was from 2003, it was not unfair to include it in the programme to support an assertion that there were concerns within the community about alleged abuse. In addition, even though the second extract did not in fact relate to child abuse allegations, the Complainants had admitted (including in the broadcast interview with Mr. Thieme) they had asked people to leave and reported them to the RRO following what they said were unproven allegations of child abuse, so the second extract did not result in unfairness to the Complainants. Description of the case of Mr. Didier Keim The programme described the case of Mr. Keim, a French citizen who the Complainants stated was given “Newcomer” status in December 1995 and who had contact with children at the New Creation settlement. The reporter stated in the programme: “One man who worked at this school was Frenchman Didier Keim. Despite having a previous conviction for paedophilia in France he moved to Auroville in 1995 and began working with children. Auroville say they expelled Keim immediately they became suspicious of his behaviour. But witnesses say he continued to work with children in Auroville for another five years. He was finally arrested and sentence for paedophilia in the nearby town of Pondicherry in 2004”. The Complainants stated in their immediate response to the BBC on receiving the transcript of the programme and in their complaint to Ofcom that Mr Keim had his Newcomer status terminated in September 1996 because of alleged “misbehaviour with children”, that he had no further contact with the school, that he was told not to return to Auroville, that the RRO was informed and that his conviction in 2004 was for offences committed away from Auroville, in Pondicherry. They did not dispute the BBC’s assertion that Mr Keim had a previous conviction for paedophilia in France but stated they had not known about it at the time. Ofcom noted that the factual circumstances behind Mr. Keim’s case were disputed between the parties and that much of the evidence submitted to Ofcom about Mr. Keim was collated after the programme was broadcast. It did appear from evidence subsequently submitted that, in fact, the information supplied to the BBC by Mr. Batra and Mr. Nandhivarman that Mr. Keim continued to work with children in Auroville for five years after he was expelled was incorrect. The issue for Ofcom was whether the BBC took reasonable care to ensure that by reporting what witnesses claimed at the time of broadcast it did not present, disregard or omit material facts in relation to Mr. Keim in a way that was unfair to the Complainants. Ofcom noted that the programme made it clear that the Complainants maintained they had expelled Mr. Keim as soon as they became aware of allegations about his behaviour, that Mr. Keim had been in Auroville for “not more than eight months” (as stated in Mr. Thieme’s interview) and that he had been tried and convicted in Pondicherry. In relation to the reporter’s statement that “witnesses say he continued to work with children in Auroville for another five years”, this was indeed what witnesses had told the reporter. In the circumstances, Ofcom did not consider the description of Mr. Keim’s case was unfair to the Complainants. Interview with Mr. Carel Thieme Mr. Thieme of the Working Committee was also interviewed as part of the programme. This is considered by Ofcom below in relation to the Complainants’ opportunity to respond, but Ofcom noted that Mr. Thieme made some points immediately in response to the allegations made by the programme. In particular, Mr. Thieme made it clear that the Complainants did not accept the allegations made and considered that there were inaccuracies in the programme. He also pointed out the distinction between occurrences in Auroville itself and “around my community”. In relation to specific allegations, he stated Mr. Keim was removed within eight months of his arrival in Auroville and the Pondicherry authorities were informed. Mr. Thieme also confirmed a couple of other individuals had been asked to leave Auroville since Mr. Keim, but noted allegations against them had not been proved. Ofcom considered that Mr. Thieme’s interview, together with comments made in the programme about the Complainants’ rejection of allegations, provided an important response to the allegations reported in the programme against the Complainants. As mentioned above, Ofcom recognized the importance of freedom of expression and the freedom to broadcast matters of genuine public interest such as the allegations contained in this programme. However, it also recognized that in presenting such serious allegations the Code requires that broadcasters take reasonable care not to do so in a way that causes unfairness to individuals or organizations. In this case, taking into account each of the specific items of evidence considered above and the submissions of the parties, Ofcom did not consider that the programme presented, disregarded or omitted material facts in a way that was unfair to the Complainants in respect of the portrayal of the issue of child abuse and the Complainants’ response to it and has not upheld the complaint in this respect.
a)ii) Ofcom considered the complaint that the Complainants were unfairly portrayed because it was suggested wrongly and unfairly that they exploited the local Tamil villagers, that few ever become members of Auroville and that they feared reprisals from the Complainants if they spoke out. Ofcom considered whether the programme makers’ actions ensured that the programme as broadcast avoided unjust or unfair treatment of the Complainants, as set out in Rule 7.1 of the Code. In particular, Ofcom considered whether the programme makers took reasonable care to satisfy themselves that material facts were not presented, disregarded or omitted in a way that was unfair to the Complainants (as outlined in Practice 7.9 of the Code).
The programme reported allegations made by Tamil villagers that, as well as the alleged child abuse referred to above, there was exploitation and that local people were afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals by Aurovilians. In response to the transcript sent to them, the Complainants stated it was untrue that there was exploitation and that they were an “excellent neighbour”. Ofcom noted that the programme included a statement at the end of the report reflecting some of the positive aspects of the Complainants’ involvement in the local community, stating that: “It is also clear that Auroville has a good record in helping the local community. They run schools, employ villagers and when the Tsunami struck South India, they played a large part in the relief effort. Yet allegations of child abuse threaten to ruin that carefully crafted relationship”. Ofcom recognized that there may be a variety of reasons for villagers to make allegations about their neighbours in Auroville, and, as previously noted above, the programme made it clear, by the inclusion of Mr. Thieme’s interview, that the Complainants rejected those complaints. Ofcom also noted that the programme made clear that the Complainants had a positive record in the community. Ofcom noted that the Complainants had specific concerns about the statement in the programme that few local Tamils became members of Auroville. Ofcom recognized that only a small percentage of local villagers become members of Auroville, but that this was partly because Auroville’s population is small relative to the local Tamil population, and in fact around 30% of Aurovilians were Tamil. Ofcom considered this could have been phrased more carefully; however, it did not consider it led to unfairness in itself. With regard to the claim that the local villagers feared reprisals from the Complainants, Ofcom noted that the BBC said that the reporter had been told of several incidents of violence between Aurovilians and local Tamils and that many Tamils gave the clear impression to the reporter that they were scared of upsetting the Complainants because their livelihoods depended on them and because they felt vulnerable to acts of reprisal.
In response to this claim, Ofcom noted that that prior to broadcast the Complainants informed the BBC that there was no question of recriminations, that there had never been an incident of reprisal by them and that they depended upon the goodwill of their neighbours. While Ofcom noted that the Complainants’ response on this particular point was not included in the programme, it recognized that the statement of Sundrun included in the programme made clear that concerns about reprisals were directly linked to the villagers’ dependence upon the Complainants for work. Ofcom considered that viewers would have understood reluctance by villagers to criticize the source of their employment and benefits and, in that context; Ofcom did not consider that the claims about fear and reprisals would have materially affected viewers’ understanding of the Complainants in a way that was unfair to them. The programme also did not allege that local people’s fear of reprisals or for their livelihoods, or their view that exploitation took place was justified, merely that the concern had been expressed by local Tamil villagers. The Complainants themselves accepted in their response to the BBC script that there was a degree of tension at times which they put down to distrust of the “internationalism” of Auroville and unequal income levels. In the circumstances, Ofcom considered that the BBC had taken reasonable care not to present, disregard or omit material facts in relation to this allegation in a way that resulted in unfairness to the Complainants.
a) iii) Ofcom considered the complaint that the Complainants were unfairly portrayed because the programme suggested wrongly and unfairly that they were an anarchic sect. Ofcom considered whether the programme makers’ actions ensured that the programme as broadcast avoided unjust or unfair treatment of the Complainants, as set out in Rule 7.1 of the Code. In particular, Ofcom considered whether the programme makers took reasonable care to satisfy themselves that material facts were not presented, disregarded or omitted in a way that was unfair to the Complainants (as outlined in Practice 7.9 of the Code). Ofcom noted that the statements made at separate points in the course of the programme that the Complainants took exception to and which they considered portrayed them as an anarchic sect were: “the anarchic utopian vision”, “Aurovilians aspire to something called divine anarchy – no rules, no leaders”, “one of the issues is that Auroville doesn’t really have a leadership structure”, “but many feel Auroville and Pondicherry have slipped beneath the radar”, “induction takes one year” and “they undergo a year’s induction before they become full members”. In response to the transcript sent to them, the Complainants made clear that they had a complex leadership and management structure, as set out in the Auroville Act, that they had rules, such as their detailed Admission Policy, that they had no aspiration for no rules and no leaders and that they were not a sect as suggested by the word “initiation” which the BBC changed to “induction” in the programme as broadcast While Ofcom noted that it was incorrect to say that the Complainants had no leadership structure, it did not consider that, when looking at the programme as a whole, it made allegations that the Complainants were anarchic or that the use of the term “induction” portrayed them as a sect in the pejorative sense. Instead, the “anarchic” references had been to the vision and aspiration of the Complainants, rather than to their current status. In the circumstances, Ofcom did not consider that the programme portrayed the Complainants as an “anarchic sect” or that the references resulted in unfairness to the Complainants. Ofcom has not therefore upheld the complaint in this respect.
a) iv) Ofcom considered the complaint that the Complainants were unfairly portrayed because the programme contained numerous other inaccuracies which contributed to the unfair portrayal, including suggestions that: · 16,000 Tamil villagers lived in Auroville; · The Complainants were partly financed by the Indian Government; and · Auroville’s members paid no tax. Furthermore, much of the footage broadcast was not of Auroville, but of surrounding farmland, villages and Pondicherry. Ofcom considered whether the programme makers’ actions ensured that the programme as broadcast avoided unjust or unfair treatment of the Complainants, as set out in Rule 7.1 of the Code. In particular, Ofcom considered whether the programme makers took reasonable care to satisfy themselves that material facts were not presented, disregarded or omitted in a way that was unfair to the Complainants (as outlined in Practice 7.9 of the Code). In relation to two of the specific alleged inaccuracies, Ofcom considered they were not inaccurate. First, the Complainants accepted they received a contribution from the Indian Government representing approximately 10% for some projects, so it was correct to say they were partly financed by the Indian Government. Secondly, having viewed the programme carefully, Ofcom considered no attempt was made in the programme to pass off footage of Pondicherry and of farmland and villages surrounding Auroville as being footage of Auroville. In relation to the other two points, Ofcom considered that there were minor inaccuracies. First, it recognized that it was incorrect to state that 16,000 Tamil villagers lived in Auroville as opposed to the area surrounding Auroville. Secondly, it noted that the BBC accepted the statement that Auroville members paid no tax may have been misleading. However, in Ofcom’s view, it was unlikely that either statement would have materially affected viewers’ understanding of the Complainants or resulted in unfairness to them. Ofcom has therefore not upheld the complaint in this respect.
b) Ofcom considered the complaint that the Complainants were treated unfairly because the programme broadcast material obtained by deception. Ofcom considered whether the programme makers’ actions ensured that the programme as broadcast avoided unjust or unfair treatment of the Complainants, as set out in Rule 7.1 of the Code. In particular, Ofcom took into account Practice 7.14 of the Code, which states that programme makers should not normally obtain or seek material through misrepresentation or deception, but provides that it may be warranted to do so without consent if that is in the public interest and the material cannot reasonably be obtained by other means. Ofcom noted that the reporter represented herself as making a programme about the philosophy and idealism of Auroville on its 40th anniversary, rather than about allegations of child abuse. The Complainants only found out about the agenda of the programme after the reporter had left India. The BBC accepted in its submissions to Ofcom that a very limited amount of background information supplied by the Complainants was obtained by deception. It said that early disclosure of the nature of the allegations might have resulted in a lack of co-operation from the Complainants and perhaps measures to thwart the investigation. It also noted that the bulk of the material on which the allegations reported in the programme was based was obtained openly and with informed consent from parties other than the Complainants. Ofcom recognised that the use of misrepresentation or deception can in some circumstances be an important and legitimate tool for investigative journalists and that at the time the reporter was planning her visit to Auroville, she could not have known the type of reception she would receive. Ofcom also recognized that the Code does not in all cases require programme makers to spell out the content of their programme particularly where, as in this case, the programme covers a matter which is clearly in the public interest. To the extent that there was misrepresentation or deception in this case (and the BBC accepted there was to some degree), Ofcom considered that it was in the public interest and the material would be unlikely to have been obtainable by other means. In Mr. Guigan’s case, as noted above, his general statements led to no unfairness to the Complainants. In the circumstances, Ofcom has not upheld the complaint in this respect.
c) Ofcom considered the complaint that the Complainants were treated unfairly because they were not given an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond to the allegations made in the programme as broadcast. Ofcom considered whether the programme makers’ actions ensured that the programme as broadcast avoided unjust or unfair treatment of the Complainants, as set out in Rule 7.1 of the Code. In particular, Ofcom considered Practice 7.11 which requires that, if a programme alleges wrongdoing or incompetence or makes other significant allegations, those concerned should normally be given an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond. The programme reported serious allegations and, in fairness to the Complainants, it was therefore particularly important to provide them with an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond. However, Ofcom recognized that what constitutes an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond depends on the circumstances and that there was no requirement for the reporter necessarily to raise the allegations with the Complainants during her time in India.
Ofcom noted that after the reporter returned to the UK, on 24 April 2008, 27 days before the programme was broadcast, she emailed Outreach Media noting in general terms allegations regarding child abuse and asking for an interview with Dr Karan Singh about them, or for a statement from Outreach Media. On 29 April 2008, Outreach Media responded by email to the various issues raised by the reporter. They said that as Dr Singh had not been Chairman of the Governing Board at the time of the issues with Mr. Keim, he may not be able to shed further light on the matter. On 1 May 2008, the reporter sent a further email to Outreach Media which raised the allegation that villagers said child abuse was still going on but that they were fearful of speaking out because of possible recriminations. Outreach Media responded the same day expressing concern about the allegations of abuse, asking for details so they could investigate, assuring the reporter that there would be no such thing as recriminations from the Complainants and asking for details. However, due to issues of confidentiality the reporter said she was unable to supply the details requested. On 13 May 2008, the reporter emailed Outreach Media regarding allegations about Mr. Keim and three further individuals who the reporter referred to as teachers. Outreach Media provided a detailed response to this email on 16 May 2008. Auroville International UK and the Working Committee then entered into correspondence with the editor of News night and requested sight of the programme and an opportunity to provide an interview response. The BBC sent a script of the proposed programme to the Complainants on 20 May 2008 and the Working Committee sent a detailed response on 21 May 2008. Ofcom also noted that arrangements were also made for an interview with Mr. Thieme of the Working Committee. Mr. Thieme was interviewed over Skype telephone and four questions and Mr. Thieme’s responses to them were broadcast with a static picture of Mr. Thieme at the end of the programme. Ofcom considered that the email correspondence, the provision of the script and the interview with Mr. Thieme ultimately provided the Complainants with an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond to the serious allegations raised in the programme. Ofcom noted that the time allowed for the Complainants to respond to the script was quite brief, but that from the email correspondence between the reporter and Outreach Media, the Working Committee already had an indication of some of the allegations and did manage to produce a detailed response to the script in the time allowed. The Complainants had concerns that the arrangements the BBC put in place around Mr. Thieme’s interview were poor and resulted in the interview being conducted over a Skype connection broadcast over a static image of Mr. Thieme. However, this did not, in Ofcom’s view, amount to a failure to give a timely and appropriate opportunity to respond, nor did it result in unfairness to the Complainants.
In the circumstances, Ofcom has not upheld the complaint in this respect. Accordingly, Ofcom has not upheld Mr. Thieme’s complaint on behalf of The Auroville Foundation and the community of Auroville of unfair treatment in the programme as broadcast.
