Protesters clashed with police Thursday outside the BBC’s main Londonstudios ahead of a controversial TV appearance by far-right politicalleader Nick Griffin.
About 500 demonstrators and police engaged in some shoving outsidethe gates of BBC Television Centre, and pictures broadcast on the BBCshowed at least two of the protesters being dragged bodily from thebuilding.
Critics fear Griffin’s participation in panel show”Question Time” could propel his fringe anti-immigration BritishNational Party into mainstream UK politics.
One protester at the demonstration outside the BBC was Philip McCiowen, 54, from Hertfordshire, north of London.
“Hitler started like this (Yawn. –Ed.) and in a small way Nick Griffin is trying toblame the Asians, Muslims and blacks. It’s exactly the same as in 1933and he shouldn’t be allowed on television,” “McCiowen told the PressAssociation.
But most users of CNN’s Connect The World forum backed the BBC’s decision to invite Griffin on “Question Time.” Should far-right leader have TV platform? Send us your comments
“I applaud the BBC for actually taking this stance and allowing theBritish public to make up its own mind on the BNP,” wrote one user,Iain Rawlins. “To assume we are all going to be brainwashed by whatNick Griffin will have to say is tantamount to lunacy.
“Hopefully enough, the ‘Question Time’ program will have given him thisplatform to publicly hang himself with his words and the hate that liesbehind them. I applaud the BBC for actually taking this stance andallowing the British public to make up its own mind on the BNP.”
Griffin was elected leader of the BNP in the late 1990s, not long afterbeing convicted of inciting racial hatred relating to material denyingthe Holocaust. 
Watch as protesters storm BBC ยป