N.O.R.F Posted April 3, 2003 The Arabic news channel al-Jazeera says it is suspending its reports from Iraq in protest after Baghdad banned two of its correspondents from working there. The station said the Iraqi Information Ministry had barred Diyar al-Omari - an Iraqi - from reporting, and ordered correspondent Tayseer Alouni to leave the country. The channel's editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Helal, told the BBC that the Iraqis had given no reasons for their action, which he called sudden and unjustified Al-Jazeera says it will continue to transmit images from its offices in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. The station interrupted a regular broadcast to make its announcement. "They cannot dictate to us who can and cannot work" Editor-in-chief Ibrahim Helal Its eight correspondents will remain in Iraq until the Iraqis clarify their decision, Mr Helal said, adding that it was not the first time the Iraqi authorities had tried to ban its journalists. "We faced lots of things like that before from the Iraqi Government and from other governments in the Arab region, because this is a way they think," Mr Helal told the BBC. "They think the can impose some conditions on al-Jazeera or they think they can change the reporters, they can put their own criteria on our work." The Qatar-based satellite broadcaster is one of the most influential voices in the Arab world. It says it has 35 million viewers. The US and UK have accused the station of bias and criticised it for airing pictures of dead Western troops. Al-Jazeera's new English-language website has suffered a number of denial-of-service attacks since the war began, in which hackers flooded the site with junk messages. Visitors were also redirected to web pages with pro-US messages or pornography. Iraq expelled correspondents for the US cable news broadcaster CNN last week. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Thinkerman Posted April 3, 2003 Interesting.................i wonder to whom this would benefit in the unfoldingpropaanda war that i.e. 'win the hearts and minds of the Iraq ppl'. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
N.O.R.F Posted April 3, 2003 i think the iraqis realised that this was showing them in a bad light, ie they are losing the war and decided to halt it! This will now result in limited coverage for those wishing to see something other than pro-coalition coverage offered by all the rest of the infedal stations ie bbc,sky, itn,cnn, fox etc Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Libaax-Sankataabte Posted April 3, 2003 It could also be a trick to exonerate ALJAZEERA from previous bias allegations from the west. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
N.O.R.F Posted April 3, 2003 could be, reading between the lines libaax, keep it up! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Animal Farm Posted April 5, 2003 Al-Jazeera is like the opposite of CNN::: they too have thier own bias reporting. Conflict of interest you say: the head of the network is Amir,the monarch family of Qatar. They asked the US to have a network in Arab states. Hence, jazeera was made by US. Conspiracy or not, AJ reports extreme side of the war, the blood and to say the truth, and CNN reports the american version. Who do we choose as being right::: two sides extremely apart, the pro-americans choose cnn and the pro-iraqi's choos AJ. In addition, there isn't freedom of the press: in AJ or in CNN. You can;t say anything about the Holocaust in US media, but off course we can say 'GOD is a ******* ' Just be careful what you watch and read, becuase regardless of your intellectual capacity you could be fooled and manipulated by both forces. They let you see what you wanna see. BBC UK attempts to balance both networks reporting, by contrasting them, so they might be a bit close to the middle of the spectrum. PEACE Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
