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Joshua Zitser
Oct 27, 2020
On Tuesday morning, the BBC released a controversial new trailer for a documentary series about Oscar Pistorius.
The trailer for ‘The Trials of Oscar Pistorius’, an ESPN documentary that is to be broadcast on the BBC in November on iPlayer, fails to mention the name of Reeva Steenkamp a single time.
Steenkamp was Pistorius’s girlfriend. On Valentine’s Day 2013, he shot her four times and killed her. He claimed that he thought Steenkamp was an intruder.
Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide in 2014, before being found guilty of murder in 2015 on appeal. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, including time already served.
The two-minute clip focuses on Pistorius's fall from grace and the subsequent trials he faced for murder.
People online were quick to express their anger that Steenkamp's name was not mentioned once.
The BBC should be ashamed of this. This man killed his girlfriend. Her name was Reeva Steenkamp. 51% of women in So… https://t.co/fikxfNG0Ht— Nimco Ali (OBE) 🔻 (@Nimco Ali (OBE) 🔻) 1603797947
No one says Reeva Steenkamp’s name in this trailer, or speaks for her. In seven years with all that’s supposedly ch… https://t.co/OB24T7j4G8— Dr Fern Riddell (@Dr Fern Riddell) 1603794162
What on earth is this? It centres the fall of a killer as the real tragedy, and doesn't even mention the name of th… https://t.co/ZiiZJ337tw— Owen Jones 🌹 (@Owen Jones 🌹) 1603803545
What about the woman he murdered? she had her whole life snatched away. Why isn’t she named & respected?… https://t.co/g2PKy4N8O9— Baroness Hussein-Ece (@Baroness Hussein-Ece) 1603807725
Many people began to use the hashtags #SayHerName and #HerNameWasReevaSteenkamp
The BBC has been contacted for comment on the backlash against the trailer. If they respond, we'll update you.
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