A page about TV and other media in the Arab and Islamic world.
Al Jazeera Arabic throws a birthday party for
child-killer
Samir Kuntar, July 2008.
See
transcript.
Interviewer: "Brother Samir, we would like to celebrate your birthday with you. You deserve even more than this. I think that 11,000 prisoners - if they can see this program now - are celebrating your birthday with you. Happy birthday, brother Samir."
Samir Al-Quntar: "Thank you."
"Al Manar .. belongs to Hizballah and is funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran"
"It was inconceivable that Der Sturmer, the propaganda sheet put out by Hitler's propaganda minister,
Joseph Goebbels, would have been allowed to circulate unchallenged in the Allied countries during World War II.
Today, it is simply self-defeating for the West to permit American, French and other Western satellites
and cable systems to carry al Jazeera and al Manar."
"Al-Manar runs programming designed to recruit terrorists and incite violent attacks.
Much of its funding is provided by Iran."
"Today's action gives the government the tools it needs to cripple al-Manar's broadcasts,
which spread the Iranian regime's propaganda, support terrorism,
recruit suicide bombers, and incite violent attacks,"
said Mark Dubowitz of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
"Al-Manar broadcasts programming designed to recruit suicide bombers and incite violent attacks. Its broadcasts include after-school videos glorifying suicide bombers; vile anti-American and anti-Semitic programming, including the malicious blood libel falsely accusing Jews of killing Christian children to make food for Passover"
Al Jazeera
broadcasts from the unfree state of
Qatar.
It does not criticise the lack of freedom in Qatar.
Al-Qaeda's satellite channel
by Mamoun Fandy
- "Al-Jazeera reports about everything in the Arab world, with one exception: Affairs in Qatar"
Articles:
Killers With Cameras
- Ralph Peters
on Al Jazeera.
"Staffed by embittered exiles and pan-Arabist ideologues
- the last Nasserites
- al-Jazeera is so consumed by hatred of America and the West that the network would rather see Iraq collapse into a bloodbath than permit the emergence of a democracy sponsored by Washington.
...
Al-Jazeera has become the most powerful ally of terror in the world
- even more important than Saudi financiers."
Iraqi council curbs "biased" Arab TV channels
- I don't necessarily agree with restrictions on Al Jazeera.
Rather I am noting with interest
that Iraqis regard Al Jazeera as pro-Saddam.
Arab TV networks accused of fueling violence in Iraq
- Arab TV's support for the post-war fascist "resistance"
- Iraq's National Security Advisor, Muaffaq al-Rubaie,
says:
"I warn the Arabic media: Iraq's patience has reached its limit and they will regret
what they are doing.
...
This media is not happy with the end of the sectarianism in Iraq with the fall of
Saddam Hussein,
so they lie, lie and lie"
Iraqi Defense Minister:
"Al-Jazeera is a channel of terrorism. That is clear and we say openly and without hesitation:
Al-Jazeera is a channel of terrorism."
The Mesopotamian
- "I have just been watching "Al Jazeera" Television, although it is something very
distasteful to me. They are at it again. When will people realize that this terrorist organ
is a real menace and an enemy propaganda mouthpiece?
...
Al Jazeera has been actively engaged in hostile propaganda and has played an important role
in inflaming the situation and jeopardizing American and allied soldiers,
not to mention the Iraqis."
"they accuse the channel of fostering extremism among European Arab youth and of supporting terrorism.
... it seems likely that they are Iraqi expatriates"
They say:
"Since its inception, Al-Jazeera TV has chosen the path of fostering violence and hatred in the world, and has acted so as to be an arm of terrorist forces, such as Al-Qaeda and other extremist forces"
"Most guests on its shows are from a single school and tendency
... If we look at the Al-Jazeera Direct broadcasts, all we see are things harmful to the Iraqis and to Iraq - speeches, meetings, and conferences by Islamist terrorists from Al-Qaeda and from [other] terrorist organizations
...
At the same time, Al-Jazeera Direct ignores anything positive, inside or outside Iraq
...
What can we hope for and expect from a channel whose religious spokesman
[i.e. Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi]
calls day and night for jihad, killing, and terrorism, and issued a fatwa permitting the killing of Iraqis, and another fatwa permitting criminal terrorist suicide operations"
Al Jazeera English
is quite different to
Al Jazeera Arabic,
but has the same ownership,
and is also based in Qatar.
Stephen Pollard:
"the news is by far the best coverage of the Middle East I have ever seen.
Israelis are given proper air time".
And here:
"Israeli spokesmen are asked proper questions and not treated as war criminals.
It's called even handedness - a concept entirely alien to the BBC."
Though a comment
warns:
"exactly right. Al Jazeera's English-language service provides
sensible, balanced, interesting content.
It also provides false reassurance to concerned Western liberals ...
The Arabic output in the middle east is a completely different matter,
and contains a high proportion of anti-Western and anti-Jewish propaganda."
Al Jazeera described the killing of the
Hatuel family,
where a
baby was machine-gunned in a baby seat at close range,
as
a "resistance strike".
Somali Islamists ban all movies, June 2009 - but Al-Jazeera is ok with them.
"Watching films is totally banned, even indoors. ...
People are allowed to use their home televisions only to watch news on such channels such as Al-Jazeera.
...
Raids will be carried out on homes of people suspected of illegally watching films and if found guilty, they will face punishment."
Since 1995.
