JORDAN TIMES
DUBAI (R) — Gulf Arab ministers have warned Qatar's widely watched Al Jazeera television to tone down its controversial programming or face boycott, Gulf sources said on Thursday.
One source said the warning to the satellite network was issued at a meeting of information ministers of the oil-rich six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Oman on Wednesday.
Jazeera officials were not immediately available to comment.
“We are for freedom of speech in the Gulf... but we are against a news organisation that excels in using a language that is offensive and insulting,” a Gulf minister who attended the meeting told Reuters.
Another senior source said the ministers had taken particular offence at Jazeera's “The Opposite Direction,” a confrontational debate show similar to CNN's Crossfire which pits guests from opposite ends of the political spectrum.
The source said the Gulf ministers had objected to the programme's moderator allegedly calling Arab leaders “bastards” and “thieves” during the show.
“The ministers said they hoped Jazeera would adopt a more polite tone and that if it didn't the GCC would call on the private and public sector not to advertise on the channel and on officials not to cooperate with it,” the source said.
Jazeera correspondents have been expelled from several Arab countries for their hard-hitting reporting which is a rarity in this conservative region where most media is state-controlled.
GCC-member Qatar, a political maverick in the Gulf, says Jazeera is a thorn in its side but has refused to curb the channel, citing freedom of expression.
The GCC also comprises Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Qatar is currently locked in a diplomatic tussle with Saudi Arabia partly over a Jazeera programme that criticised the ruling Saud family.
The channel is one of the most popular in the Arab world. It gained notoriety during the US-led campaign in Afghanistan by broadcasting videotaped messages from Osama Ben Laden and other Al Qaeda officials, Washington's main suspects in last year's Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Friday-Saturday, October 11-12, 2002
.png){kind=avatar}
Linear Mode
