Writers accused of depicting Britain as ’playground for Russian gangsters’
The Russian embassy in the UK has criticised BBC crime thriller McMafia for its inaccurate portrayal of Russian characters.
In a tweet on Saturday (6 January), official account @RussianEmbassy stated, “The BBC’s McMafia depicts Britain as a playground for Russian gangsters” and then asked its 60,000 followers to answer a poll: “How many Russian offenders are actually in UK jails?”.
After 59% of respondents answered that fewer than 10 offenders were imprisoned, the embassy tweeted: “Crime rate among Russians in UK is well below national average. Good that our followers are not buying into the clichés BBC is spreading.”
The Telegraph reported Ministry of Justice figures which show that as of September last year there were 35 people of Russian nationality imprisoned in England and Wales, down from 51 prisoners at the end of 2016.
The Russian embassy is not the only organisation to have taken umbrage with Cuba Pictures’ six-part thriller, which stars James Norton (War and Peace) and aired its third offering on Sunday to 4.1m (17.7%).
In a Facebook post last week, UK Lawyers for Israel criticised the show’s portrayal of Israeli businessman Semiyon Kleiman, claiming that he is the target of “gratuitous slurs” that don’t appear in the show’s original source material, a book written by journalist Misha Glenny.
The group also highlighted that the motto of Israeli intelligence unit Mossad had been changed, from ‘For by wise guidance you can wage your war’ to ‘By deception we will do war’.
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