Hundreds of British Iraqis gathered outside the BBC headquarters on Wednesday to protest against the corporation’s coverage of the country’s recent plunge into crisis by Takfiri terrorism.

The demonstrators said the BBC is giving legitimacy to militants from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by terming them Sunni rebels while in reality they are primarily made up of foreign terrorists from across Europe and the Arab world.

They also called on the broadcaster to reflect the realities on the ground, which include Sunni tribesman in their thousands from the western province of Anbar to the southern Iraqi city of Basra joining in the fight against the ISIL Takfiri militants.

The protesters were holding placards reading, “BBC… Get your facts right,” “Iraqis are united against terrorism” and “My license-fee - propaganda for al-Qaeda”.

“Unfortunately, the BBC have turned this into a Sunni-Shia thing, when it’s clearly far from the truth. What we are here for is to clarify the issue that the whole of Iraq is united against these external forces that are coming to Iraq from Syria and other places,” one protester told Press TV.

Several leaders of the protest handed a letter to the BBC, outlining their concerns and demanding that the corporation be more responsible for its coverage of the violence in Iraq.

“We are British people; we are taxpayers; we read the BBC and they actually do talk about Shia and Sunnis which is wrong.

We want them to correct the misleading information that they keep on putting to the British public and to the world. This is not a sectarian war … This is a Muslim versus extremist war,” said Ali Hilli, a protest organizer.

On June 10, the ISIL militants captured Mosul, the capital city of Nineveh Province, which was followed by the capture of Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital Baghdad. Iraqi forces continue their battle against the ISIL Takfiri group.

NJF/NJF