Iraqi Council Halts Arab TV Network's News Broadcasts
U.S. Approved Move Against Al-Arabiya
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 25, 2003; Page A24
BAGHDAD, Nov. 24 -- The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council banned a popular Arab satellite news network from broadcasting from Iraq and seized equipment from its bureau in Baghdad on Monday after it aired a taped message, purportedly from former president Saddam Hussein, that called for attacks on Iraqis cooperating with the American occupation.
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator, approved and authorized the move against al-Arabiya, an official with the U.S.-led administration said. The network and its competitor, al-Jazeera, are the most influential news broadcasts both in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world. Jalal Talabani, who currently holds the council's rotating position of president, announced the order and said legal action against the station may follow.
Meanwhile, military officials and a witness raised questions about reports that two American soldiers killed Sunday in the northern city of Mosul had been beaten and had their throats slit, the Associated Press reported.
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Army had no indication that the men were beaten with rocks or that their bodies were mutilated. One witness, a teenager who identified himself as Bahaa Jassim, said the soldiers' fatal wounds appeared to have come from bullets.
The decision to shut the al-Arabiya office -- sharply criticized by media watchdog groups -- marked a dramatic escalation in the long-festering dispute that pits the U.S. occupation authority and its Iraqi allies against the two networks.
In September, the stations were temporarily barred from covering the council's news conferences or entering ministries. Throughout the occupation, U.S. officials have been blunt in their judgments that both networks incite violence against American forces with their relentless coverage of attacks on soldiers, their sometimes inflated counts of U.S. casualties and their airing of statements purportedly from guerrilla groups.
But in ordering the move, the U.S. administration and its allies again faced the formidable task of negotiating civil liberties in a country under occupation, without a constitution or an elected government.
U.S. and Iraqi officials "have both been encouraging all journalists in Iraq to practice responsible journalism and have raised concerns before, particularly with the pan-Arab satellite stations, about some of the coverage," said Charles Heatly, a spokesman with the U.S.-led administration. "Ambassador Bremer fully agreed with and supported the Governing Council's decision."
Talabani said at a news conference that the move was taken following the station's broadcast Nov. 16 of an audiotape said to contain the voice of Hussein. It urged Iraqis to fight "those who are installed by foreign armies" as well as the soldiers themselves, calling such attacks a "legitimate and patriotic duty." President Bush dismissed the tape as propaganda, and the CIA said the recording quality was so poor that it could not reach any judgments on the tape's authenticity.
Talabani said the threat amounted to "an incitement to murder."
"Inciting murder or violence is illegal under the laws of the entire world," he said. "Saddam in our eyes is a criminal, a torturer, a war criminal, and whoever disseminates for him exposes himself to legal punishment."
After announcing the order, about 20 Iraqi police officers entered the two-story brick offices of al-Arabiya, methodically registered equipment inside and then seized key broadcasting devices as well as the staff's satellite phones, journalists there said. Hours later, the bureau chief, Wahad Yacoub, signed a statement agreeing not to broadcast from Iraq until the matter was resolved, although he said the network would continue delivering news on Iraq from its head office in the United Arab Emirates.
Journalists said the police warned them that if the agreement was violated, they faced a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Members of the news staff lingered around the office Monday evening as police officers met in a room with managers. Ali Khatib, one of the correspondents, said they were told the network could resume broadcasting if it signed a statement promising "not to incite violence."
"I lived in Iraq and I lived when there was a lack of freedom in journalism," said Khatib, 32, a Baghdad native. "Now these days the same weapons are being used against journalists."
Yacoub, who directs a staff of 56 in the network's Baghdad bureau, said they had nothing to do with the tape itself. They said it was telephoned to the headquarters in Dubai, where it was recorded and then broadcast.
"We regret the decision. Actually, we're astonished by it," said Salah Negm, a veteran Arab journalist and the editor-in-chief of al-Arabiya, which began broadcasting this year. "What we do is report the events that happen. We don't make the events. If you want to treat the causes of violence, you cure the causes. You don't punish the media that cover what happens."
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the closure. It said messages from Hussein or other officials of the deposed government are "inherently newsworthy and news organizations have a right to cover them." Joel Campagna, the group's Middle East program coordinator, said the move "raises deep concerns about the future direction of press freedoms in Iraq."
In a media landscape long dominated by staid, state-dominated news programming, al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya have transformed journalism in the Arab world, mirroring sentiments as much as driving them. Al-Jazeera gained notice in the West for airing taped messages from Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Al-Arabiya began broadcasting before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and was originally expected to be a more subdued alternative to al-Jazeera. It is run by the Middle East Broadcasting Center, a company owned by the brother-in-law of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, and was backed by Saudi, Kuwaiti and Lebanese investors.
In Iraq, the fiercely competitive networks have a mixed reputation. They are widely watched by those with access to the growing number of satellite dishes in the country, far overshadowing the influence of a U.S.-sponsored channel. But many Iraqis also complain that the networks glorify guerrilla attacks and exacerbate the violence by giving voice to Hussein and previously unknown guerrilla groups.
U.S. officials, with similar complaints, have tried to pressure Arab governments to restrain the stations.
Bremer, in his weekly Friday broadcast over U.S.-run Iraq television and radio, quoted from the purported Hussein recording it to challenge its message.
A former diplomat said Bremer's response to the tape came in part because of recognition that it was widely heard. The former official noted that a recent State Department poll in Iraq found the two Arabic-language networks were far more trusted than the U.S. channel, now called al-Iraqiya.
Staff writer Walter Pincus in Washington contributed to this report.
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