Al-jazeera by Mohammed El-nawawy

Author:Mohammed El-nawawy [MOHAMMED EL-NAWAWY ADEL ISKANDAR]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

CLASH OF EMIRATES: QATAR AND KUWAIT

Kuwait has been openly critical of Al-Jazeera as well. The network is often attacked for what many in Kuwait see as a favorable bias toward Iraq. Moreover, Al-Jazeera’s talk-show hosts regularly invite Iraqi official and nonofficial figures, something to which Kuwaiti officials object. Kuwait went so far as to accuse Al-Jazeera of supporting Iraq at Kuwait’s expense. On a talk show that aired in April 1997, the editor-in-chief of one prominent Kuwaiti newspaper debated the editor of a London-based Palestinian publication about Iraqi suffering under UN economic sanctions. During the debate, both guests criticized the Kuwaiti regime for its endorsement of the sanctions, in effect since Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. After the program aired, the Kuwaiti information minister flew to Qatar to submit an official complaint to his Qatari counterpart about Al-Jazeera. The Qatari emir explicitly told the Kuwaiti minister that Al- Jazeera is autonomous and that despite state funding for the network, he would not interfere.

Perhaps the emir inspired the Kuwaiti minister, because after this incident the Kuwaiti press changed its tone. In fact, Kuwaiti television adopted an Al-Jazeera-inspired style, increasing the number of talk shows and hosting members of the Iraqi opposition. Faisal Al-Kasim, host of Al-Jazeera’s The Opposite Direction, in an article published in a recent issue of the French newspaper Le Monde, added that many state-owned Arab television have started to copy his program’s style despite the criticism leveled by Arab regimes. “They even imitate the shape of my table, but they have a long way to go before they match the content,” he said confidently.

However, relations between Al-Jazeera and Kuwait inexplicably changed again. In early June 1999, the Kuwaiti government closed the network’s office in Kuwait. On June 19, Kuwait’s then information minister, Youssef Al-Sumait, cited violations of professional ethics and issued a decree prohibiting Al-Jazeera reporters from covering stories in Kuwait. According to the Kuwaiti News Agency, “Media activity or any other activity by [Al-Jazeera] would not be allowed in the State of Kuwait and that the journalistic and media work permits of all those working at the Al-Jazeera office in Kuwait or those who cooperate with it had been revoked.”

The ban came in response to a June 1999 broadcast of Al- Jazeera’s live program Al-Sharia wal Hayat (Islamic Law and Life). During the broadcast, a viewer who identified himself as an Iraqi national living in Norway phoned in and railed against Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, the emir of Kuwait. In response to a guest who had asked that God save Sheikh Jaber, the caller reportedly said that God should not be asked to save a man “who embraces atheists and permits foreign armies to enter Kuwait.”

Al-Sumait said Al-Jazeera was banned and its bureau in Kuwait was closed because it had the “audacity to attack” the emir and the state of Kuwait: “While understanding much of the embarrassments caused during live broadcasts, the repeated encroachment, more than once, makes Al-Jazeera directly responsible for this unacceptable insult against the symbol of Kuwait.

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