[A-List] Iraq: Arab tv news ban

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Baghdad bans Arab TV for broadcasting 'poison'

Rory McCarthyin Baghdad
Wednesday September 24, 2003
The Guardian

Iraq's governing council banned the Arab world's two leading television
channels yesterday from government offices and news conferences, accusing
them of broadcasting "poison".

Iraqi officials accused al-Jazeera, the pioneering news channel based in
Qatar, and al-Arabiya, based in the United Arab Emirates, of encouraging
violence against the US military and Iraqi officials and of promoting
sectarian divisions.

Yesterday's ban was the first against the international press in Iraq but it
was a watered-down version of a decision reached in private by the
US-appointed council on Monday.

A draft order had been written on Monday night to expel journalists working
for the networks from Iraq for a month but it was scaled back without
explanation.

Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi, the council's president,
said the ban was "a positive step to protect the Iraqi people from the
poisons being broadcast by the channels". He suggested that reporters from
the networks were warned about attacks on US convoys. Both companies deny
the allegations.

"We will not let them broadcast footage of US soldiers being ripped apart,"
Mr Qanbar said, warning that fines could follow.

Although the council had voted to expel the networks, only the US and UK
would have the authority to carry out such a measure, as the occupying
powers in Iraq.

Paul Bremer, the US administrator of Iraq, who was in the US yesterday, can
veto all the council's decisions.
The council issued a statement last night, signed by Iyad Allawi, the acting
president. It said the ban was a "warning and temporary measure".

"Correspondents of the two channels will not be permitted to enter the
ministries or government buildings for two weeks," it said. "The governing
council reserves the right to take additional measures when necessary
without prior warning."

Both al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya yesterday strongly defended their coverage of
Iraq. The two networks have a large team of correspondents and freelancers
based across the country and are frequently several hours ahead of most
western media in reporting attacks on the US military. Both have broadcast
statements by Saddam Hussein and militant groups, some of which have
threatened members of the governing council.

"This is going to be the first real test of the council, a group of people
who call themselves democratic," said Amr El-Kahky, an al-Jazeera
correspondent in Baghdad who worked for the BBC Arabic Service in London for
seven years.

"We don't have views we just report what is happening on the ground. We are
not enemies here, we are not part of the conflict. We try to achieve
objectivity and we always will."