Iraqi Governing Council urged to lift ban on Al-Arabiya

Reporters Without Borders called on the Iraqi Governing Council to reverse its decision today to ban the Dubai-based satellite TV news channel Al-Arabiya from operating in Iraq until it gives a written undertaking not to encourage terrorism. The organisation also condemned the government's use of police to close the station's offices in the Baghdad district of Al-Mansur. The ban was imposed because Al-Arabiya on 16 November broadcast an audiotape in which a voice said to be that of Saddam Hussein was heard urging Iraqis to kill members of the US-installed transitional government. "The handling of the news is the sole responsibility of news editors," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said. "Iraq's new authorities should not try to get a news organisation to change its editorial line by using force - such methods belong to the past and are contrary to the promises of democracy made to the Iraqi people." Ménard said a news organisation is not guilty of inciting murder when it broadcasts a message in which a person who is supposedly Saddam Hussein is heard calling for murder. "Instead of preventing journalists in the field from doing their work, the Iraqi Governing Council should address its objections to the TV network's management and should get down to the job of setting up a body to regulate and monitor the news media, consisting of elected members of the new media," Ménard added. Iraq's interim government already banned Al-Arabiya and fellow Arabic satellite news channel Al-Jazeera from covering its official activities for two weeks after they broadcast audiotapes said to be of Saddam Hussein at the time of the murder of interim government member Akila al-Hashimi on 20 September.