WEST BANK: Palestinian officials succeed in taking TV political satire off the air

The worst fears of Imad Farajin, Palestinian actor and author of political satire and TV comedy show "Watan Ala Watar" ("Country on a String"), came true  Wednesday when the Palestinian Authority’s attorney general, Ahmad Mughani, ordered Palestine TV to stop broadcasting the locally produced show.

The show, aired nightly on Palestine TV, started broadcasting on the first day of the Muslim fast month of Ramadan. After a seemingly successful first year, the authors and producers of the short show decided to go for a second season.

However, its harsh and sarcastic criticism of Palestinian officials has upset them all; some decided to sue the show and Palestine TV and others put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to pull if off the air.

After 16 episodes, the attorney general decide to take action and issued an order shutting down the show, claiming it had offensive language and insulted senior officials.

Whether that was within his authority remains to be decided, but the decision was made and Palestine TV pulled the plug on the show.

“Freedom of opinion is guaranteed in the Palestinian law,” said Farajin, who saw the decision coming. “What the attorney general did was an outrageous infringement on freedom of opinion,” he said.

Farajin said he will not take the decision lightly, but will turn it into a public issue. He said he will go to court to challenge the attorney general’s decision, which he said came without even hearing their point of view.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, the official in charge of Palestine TV, grudgingly accepted the attorney general’s decision and immediately pulled the show off the air. He also questioned the legality of Mughani’s ruling.

“We are going to challenge that decision because if it was allowed to hold, it will set a dangerous precedent that could also affect other works, and there are signs this might happen,” he said.

He expressed concern that the attorney general, who appointed himself in charge of artistic works, may take action in the future against any TV show, or play or painting, or a song or even a newspaper article.

“If the attorney general believes he now has the power to stop any artistic or creative work, we will be then facing a major catastrophe that will affect all freedoms,” said Abed Rabbo.

The attorney general defended his decision. “The 1960 criminal law (a Jordanian law) gives the attorney general the right to take proper legal action under the article that talks about slander against the authority,” said Mughani.

“We believe in freedoms and we defend it,” he added. “But this program included obscene language that touched esteemed and respected symbols of the Palestinian people.”

-- Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

BAHRAIN: Government shuts down newspaper critical of crackdown

Sunday's print and online editions of the independent Bahraini newspaper Al Wasat were blocked as authorities reportedly accused the daily of fabricating news in its coverage of the widespread anti-government protest movement that rocked the country last month.

Al Jazeera reported that Al Wasat had been critical in its coverage of the state's response to the popular uprising. Security forces violently ousted demonstrators from Manama's Pearl Roundabout and allegedly open fire on peaceful marches. 

Editor Mansour Jamri, speaking to the Financial Times, denied the allegations against his paper, describing a "sustained campaign" against the publication.

“They [the authorities] say someone was working with them, so maybe something was planted so they could come back at us," Jamri told the Financial Times [registration required]. "All we can say is we never intended to fabricate news."

The targeting of media outlets is the latest indication of a widening crackdown by the Sunni-dominated government against the protest movement, which is driven largely by the country's majority Shiite population.

At least 24 people have been killed since the unrest began, the government announced last Tuesday, and activists say hundreds more have been arrested in recent weeks as Bahraini and other Gulf Arab forces set up checkpoints around the small island nation to monitor citizens' movements, especially in and out of Shiite areas.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Image: Al Wasat's Web portal was blocked on Sunday.

IRAN: Government-controlled media mute on deadly protests in Syria

The deadly mass demonstrations that have rocked Syria for the last 10 days and constitute the greatest challenge to President Bashar Assad since he took power 11 years ago have been a top news item on many media networks around the world.

But not in Iran. Government-controlled media in Syria's close ally remain largely silent about the unprecedented demonstrations and political unrest.

Since the start of the protests in Syria, Iranian government and semi-official media appear to have turned a blind eye to the upheavals and instead have focused on the unrest in Yemen, Libya and, particularly, Shiite-majority Bahrain, where there is loyalty to Iran.

[Updated, 9:02 a.m.: Although ignoring the protests, several government-controlled and semi-official Iranian media outlets appear to have taken interest in the demonstrations organized in Syria on Tuesday in support of Assad. "Millions of Syrians [link in Persian] supporting President Bashar Assad's reform, national security, and unity plan" took part, read an excerpt of an article posted on the website of Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency. Fars News reported that "hundreds of thousands [link in Persian] of people" had been in the streets of Damascus and Aleppo "to show their allegiance to President Bashar Assad."

The Iranian reformist news site Rahesabz, for its part, ignored the pro-Assad protests and covered reports that the Syrian president might lift the state of emergency (Perisan).]

One of the few recent references on the Syrian unrest in Iranian state media came Saturday when the Islamic Republic News Agency reportedly published (link in Persian) an article about how Syrian television had aired a video that day of two Syrian American protesters who purportedly confessed to being paid stooges of Israel and the U.S.  

Otherwise, it's mainly reformist Iranian websites that have been providing news and analysis on Syria over the last few days, observers say.

The reformist Iranian news site AftabNews reported on the death toll (link in Persian) in some protest-stricken Syrian cities over the weekend while Rahesabz, a web platform close to Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, has been reporting more regular updates and analysis on Syria. 

When the protests kicked off in Syria and reports began to trickle in about security forces cracking down on demonstrators with deadly force and protesters being billed as armed gangs by Syrian media, opposition writers compared it with the Iranian authorities' clampdown on anti-government protesters.

"Dozens of protesting people were killed by security and anti-riot police in Syria, and the Syrian government, in the manner of its Iranian ally, claimed that 'criminal gangs' were responsible for killing the protesting people," read an article posted on Rahesabz (Persian) on March 24.

Another piece posted on the site, written by U.S.-based dissident Iranian cleric and philosopher Mohsen Kadivar, puts the governments of Libya, Iran and Syria in the same bag, saying that they are "sooner or later doomed."

Meanwhile, Tabnak -- an Iranian news site close to moderate hardliners -- focused on the (link in Persian) political prisoners who were freed over the weekend and the release of a group of detainees arrested outside the Syrian interior ministry.

-- Los Angeles Times

Photo: Opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad shout slogans outside the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, after prayers, March 25, 2011. Credit: Associated Press 

 

 

ISRAEL: Israel admits to holding missing Gaza engineer

Derar Abu Sisi, an engineer and deputy manager of the Gaza power plant, was reported missing last month in Ukraine after he boarded a train to Kiev but never made it. 

First, bloggers reported it. Then came the mainstream foreign press, and finally, the story made it into the Israeli press via the revolving-door practice of censorship-approved quoting of foreign reports and maybe a few "I know but can't tell you" hints too. Israeli readers are accustomed to reading between the lines. A Palestinian human rights group has also now published Abu Sisi's account of his abduction.

A petition filed by an Israeli rights non-governmental organization wrested from the court permission for Israeli media to report with authority the basic information already out there, that the Palestinian engineer from Gaza is being held in Israel. Abu Sisi is in Shikma prison in southern Israel while being investigated. The gag order was only partially lifted and the full Israeli version of the circumstances of how he went missing in Ukraine and turned up in Israel won't be cleared for publication in Israel for another 30 days.

According to foreign reports, Abu Sisi arrived in Ukraine — where he had studied for a decade and earned his doctorate in electrical engineering — in late January. A few weeks later he boarded a late-night train to Kiev, where he was to meet a friend before going to the airport to meet his brother Yousef,  who was coming in from Holland and whom he hadn't seen in years.

A few hours after the train arrived with no Abu Sisi, his brother reported the engineer missing. Veronika, the engineer's Ukrainian wife, accused Israel's  Mossad intelligence agency of abducting her husband with the purpose of gaining information to sabotage the Gaza power plant. She told the press she didn't know what to tell their six children about their father, who had "disappeared off a train in a democratic country."

QATAR: Al Jazeera faces tough questions as Doha backs Saudi troops in Bahrain

The Doha, Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network has been credited with helping to sustain protest movements across the region with its wall-to-wall coverage, but will its editorial line change now that Qatar has voiced support for Saudi intervention in Bahrain?

On Monday, Qatar's prime minister, Sheik Hamad Jassim ibn Jaber al Thani, held a phone interview with Al Jazeera's Khadija Bin Qinna and Mohammad Kurayshan in which he characterized the deployment of security forces from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Bahrain as "assistance and support" within the framework of existing agreements.

"I think the call of his highness the Bahraini crown prince for dialogue is a sincere one that should be well taken by all parties," he said, after refusing to rule out the possibility of Qatari troops being deployed as well.

"We believe that in order for dialogue to succeed, we have to defuse this tension through the withdrawal of all from the street and through the return of the language of dialogue and compassion among all segments of the Bahraini people," he added.

Bin Qinna and Kurayshan pressed the prime minister concerning statements from the Bahraini opposition warning that it considers the presence of foreign troops to be an "occupation," to which he responded by reiterating his support for dialogue.

Al Jazeera is considered among the most credible Arabic news sources, but it has been accused at certain times of allowing its royal backer's political affiliations to skew its coverage. Al Jazeera Arabic, in particular, has recently been criticized for what some see as its overly careful handling of violent clashes between Bahraini protesters and government forces.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: Saudi troops enter Bahrain on Monday. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

LIBYA: Al Jazeera cameraman mourned as journalists continue to be targeted

A cameraman for Al Jazeera was killed and another man wounded Saturday afternoon when a network van came under fire near the rebel-held city of Benghazi in what the network is describing as an ambush (link in Arabic).

Although the identity of the assailants is unknown, Al Jazeera has made it clear that it holds besieged Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi and his government responsible.

"This attack came after an unprecedented incitement campaign by Kadafi," the station's general director, Wadah Khanfar, said on Al Jazeera, according to the Associated Press. "This incitement is the main reason for what happened."

The above video released by the network shows a large crowd of Libyan supporters who gathered in the city's main square to mourn the death of 56-year-old Ali Hassan Jaber, a Qatari national. The crowd can be heard yelling, "Without our soul and our blood, we'll defend you Al Jazeera."

Al Jazeera has been successfully broadcasting its coverage of the ongoing unrest in Libya, undermining claims by Kadafi that the country is either calm and under his control or that there is violence being caused by Islamic radicals and drugged-out Revolutionaries.

LIBYA: Ahmadinejad slams repression in Libya as Iranian authorities confiscate satellite dishes

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday slammed Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi for what he described as "unimaginable repression" against the Libyan people.

"It is unimaginable that someone is killing his citizens, bombarding his citizens," Ahmadinejad said in an interview broadcast on state television. "How can officers be ordered to use bullets from machine guns, tanks and guns against their own citizens?"

"This is unacceptable. Let the people speak, be free, decide to express their will," he added. "Do not resist the will of the people."

Ahmadinejad has been widely criticized for his government's violent crackdown on protesters following the disputed 2009 presidential elections in Iran.

The president's words followed midnight raids Monday and Tuesday on several apartment buildings in the Qods township in western Tehran, considered a bastion of the opposition. The raids were aimed at collecting banned television satellite dishes, sources in Tehran told Babylon & Beyond. Authorities have repeatedly blamed foreign and opposition media beamed into Iran via satellite for fomenting unrest against the government.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

AFP contributed to this report.

Photo: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has criticized Libya for its violent crackdown on protesters. Credit: Fars News Agency

 

SYRIA: Another blogger jailed as social media fuels protests in Arab world

At a time when online activism can be risky, as it is credited with -- or blamed for -- fanning the flames of activism sweeping the region, a veteran Syrian blogger has been arrested.

Ahmad Abu Khair was pulled over and arrested early Sunday morning while driving from the coastal town of Banias to Damascus, according to the advocacy group Global Voices and a Facebook group calling for his release (link in Arabic). The charges against him are still unknown, but Khair was enthusiastic in his online support of the ouster of former Tunisian President Zine al Abadine Ben Ali.

In a recent post on his blog titled "Inspired by the revolution" (Arabic link), Khair compared the conditions that led to the uprising in Tunisia with the situation in Syria and other Arab countries, concluding: "Change is possible ... but by revolution!"

But others have said that Khair's comments were not seen as particularly controversial and were echoed by many in the blogosphere.

"All Syrian bloggers praised the revolution and talked generally about why change is important," a source in Syria with knowledge of social media told Babylon & Beyond. "If his blog was the reason" for his arrest, "then this is surely a change of policy: If you support a revolution you'll be detained."

BAHRAIN: Another killed as funeral for fallen protester devolves into clashes [Updated]

 
A second protester was killed Tuesday when a funeral procession for a protester killed Monday erupted into new clashes with Bahraini police, according to local media.

Fadhel Matrook was one of several thousand supporters who joined the funeral procession for Ali Abdulhadi Mushaima, who was shot and killed Monday amid widespread protests against government abuse. Human rights activists said police moved in on the procession as crowds of mourners were exiting the hospital.

Nabeel Rajab, from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, and other activists told CNN that Matrook was shot by either pellet guns or birdshot.

A graphic image posted online appeared to show the back of an unidentified protester punctured by many tiny holes similar to wounds inflicted by bird-shot, but the photograph could not be authenticated. Other footage and pictures posted online showed evidence of a violent suppression of the protests in Bahrain, now in their second day.

EGYPT: Government unblocks Al Jazeera

Egypt's state-owned NileSat satellite company has announced that it will unblock Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera Live, the Doha-based news network announced Wednesday, 10 days after authorities stopped transmission over the channel's coverage of anti-government protests.

The decision comes after Egypt's ambassador to the United Nations, Maged Abdelaziz, told the U.N. Security Council that the government had no effective means of controlling the flow of information.

"Even though when we had some disputes with Al Jazeera, and then they were able to broadcast, they managed to maneuver us and go to get from some other sources," Abdelaziz said, according to the Al Jazeera English live blog.

"The world is a small village, and everybody knows what is happening all over the place," he added.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Screenshot: Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera Live were blocked from NileSat. Credit: Aljazeera.net

TUNISIA: First independent news channel latest milestone in uprising

The first "post-revolution" satellite channel based in Tunisia was launched Saturday just weeks after a popular uprising forced former President Zine el Abidine ben Ali to flee the country, the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Quds Al Arabi reported.

The new, privately owned station, "Sawt an-Naas" or "Voice of the People," represents a new victory for the protest movement. Many of its journalists are former Tunisian exiles who have only recently been allowed to return to their country, according to the station's cofounder, Mourad Sellami, who also pledged to maintain editorial independence and high professional standards.

"Our channel does not follow a specific political line," Sellami told Al Quds Al Arabi. "We are a channel that aspires to have an independent editorial line and remain open to any Tunisian opinion without any exclusion."

For now, the channel has begun transmitting the Tunisian national anthem as it gets its programming in line, but Sellami said he hopes to begin broadcasting soon. Fostering a local independent press will be vital to ensuring meaningful reform, with the coming elections still hanging in the balance and conflicting reports about the source of ongoing unrest.

The newspaper noted that prior to Ben Ali's departure and the sacking of large parts of his government, all television and radio stations based in Tunisia were either state-owned or private but toed the party line, most notably Nessma TV and Hannibal, which were owned by a relative of Ben Ali's wife.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

EGYPT: Authorities detain reporters, confiscate equipment

Authorities in Egypt appear to be stepping up a clampdown on the media as anti-government protests continue. Six reporters from the pan-Arabic satellite news channel Al Jazeera English were reportedly detained temporarily on Monday and had their equipment confiscated by the Egyptian military.

Al Jazeera announced Monday that six of its journalists had been detained and some of its camera equipment seized by the Egyptian military following government attempts to silence the network. The journalists were released shortly thereafter.

Al Jazeera has emerged as the leading network in covering the uprising in Egypt with correspondents in every major Egyptian city reporting in both English and Arabic.

On Sunday, the network reported tht President Hosni Mubarak's government revoked Al Jazeera's accreditation and ordered its Cairo bureau to close. The station has continued to broadcast from Egypt, but its anchors have noted significant restrictions in their journalists' freedom of movement and ability to report.

At 2:11 p.m., Al Jazeera English correspondent Dan Nolan tweeted: "4 soldiers entered room took our camera. We are under military arrest #Egypt #jan25."A few minutes later he tweeted: "unsure if arrested or about to be deported. 6 of us held at army checkpoint outside Hilton hotel."