Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[goodluck]

What was it Bush said in London, something like, "I see freedom of expression is alive and well in GB, now Iraqis have freedom of speech too"?

Maybe that doesn't apply to some Arab broadcasters who aren't fond of the US.

Iraq Council Accused of Censorship After TV Ban

The closure of Al Arabiya's office follows earlier sanctions against the channel and Al Jazeera -- both of which have broadcast messages attributed to Saddam -- under a Governing Council decree banning incitement to violence.

Those messages, like tapes purported to be the voice or image of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), have also been broadcast by Western media outlets. But no action has been taken against Western media, sparking accusations of discrimination against Arab channels that Washington accuses of siding with Saddam.


By Joseph Logan

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - By gagging a gadfly Arab TV news channel, Iraq (news - web sites)'s U.S.-backed administration risks looking more like the regime of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) that America ousted than the democratic government Washington says it wants to install, media groups said on Tuesday.

Iraqi police raided and shut down the Baghdad offices of Dubai-based Al Arabiya on Monday, shortly after the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council said it would take legal action against the channel for inciting violence by running an audio tape purportedly recorded by Saddam.


The raid on Al Arabiya, a channel Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denounced last week as "violently anti-coalition," drew accusations from fellow media organizations and journalists' unions that free speech was being curtailed where Washington promises to let it flourish.


"It only reflects negatively on the Governing Council and the U.S. administration in Iraq because at the end of the day, closing a channel flies in the face of the principles that America claims to stand for and to want to import to Iraq," said an official at Al Jazeera, a competitor Arabic-language satellite news channel and itself a target of U.S. ire.


"These tapes are news, part of the puzzle that people need to be aware of, and it's incumbent on the media to report that."


Rumsfeld, taking questions from journalists in Washington, agreed that the U.S. military in Iraq had gathered "compelling evidence" showing that either Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya or both was cooperating with insurgents.


"The answer is 'yes'," he said. "I have seen scraps of information over a sustained period of time that need to be looked at in a responsible orderly way. And I am not in a position to make a final judgment on it, as I indicated earlier."


"I opined accurately that from time to time those stations (Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera) have found themselves in very close proximity to things that were happening against coalition forces before the event happened and during the event.


"There are only so many events in the country and there is a relatively finite number of their people. So how it happens is for time to tell."


The International Federation of Journalists said the Council's ban on Al Arabiya was "playing into the hands of the enemies of democracy by imposing the sort of censorship that was a hallmark of Saddam Hussein's odious regime."


"This sort of thing will only encourage more rumor, speculation and uncertainty within a community already fearful about the future," IFJ Secretary General Aidan White said.


CHARGES OF DISCRIMINATION


The closure of Al Arabiya's office follows earlier sanctions against the channel and Al Jazeera -- both of which have broadcast messages attributed to Saddam -- under a Governing Council decree banning incitement to violence.


Those messages, like tapes purported to be the voice or image of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), have also been broadcast by Western media outlets. But no action has been taken against Western media, sparking accusations of discrimination against Arab channels that Washington accuses of siding with Saddam.


"We have run this stuff, as we did with bin Laden tapes, on its merits as a tape purportedly from Saddam Hussein," BBC foreign editor Jonathan Baker told Reuters.


"It appears that the Governing Council has identified certain broadcasters to punish for something everyone has done."

Many Iraqis rely on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya for news. But others accuse the two channels of being biased toward Saddam.

"They got what they deserved, they shouldn't have broadcast these things," said Salim Abdel Wahhab, 55, a security guard in central Baghdad. "They're not interested in democracy either, or they wouldn't side with these people."

Ibrahim al-Khayyat, Baghdad bureau chief of Lebanon's LBC satellite channel, said Arab media channels were not necessarily pro-Saddam but did have an editorial stance on the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031126/tv_nm/iraq_media_dc_5