Written evidence from Gilberto Ferraz
(Retired member of the World Service, in which served for 30 years)
PROPOSED CLOSING DOWN OF THE BBC PORTUGUESE
LANGUAGE SERVICE
The announcement of the closure of the Portuguese
Language Service to Africa is lamentable and wrong for the following
reasons:
1. As fairly new and still developing democracies,
aggravated by the fact of the prevailing illiteracy whose peoples
very much depend on the easy accessibility of radio, in which
the BBC Portuguese Language Service has been a very important
source of independent news, to stop it now is a clear disservice
to their own development;
2. Apart from that, it has been a long tradition
for those peoples to depend on the BBC as their only source of
news;
3. Considering the many different dialects, in
which governments such as the Angolan one adopted the Portuguese
language as a unifying factor, the BBC to stop its transmissions
is not only a big mistake but also a sad departure from the traditional
and long-standing as well as most appreciated British solidarity;
4. TRUST AND WILL BE GRATEFUL THAT YOU CONSIDER
THESE IMPORTANT POINTS AND TAKE THE DUE ACTION AT THE ANNOUNCED
COMMITTEE REVIEW OVER THE PROPOSED CLOSURES AT THE BBC WORLD SERVICE.
26 January 2011
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