Egypt’s Al Jazeera ban shows channel’s key role

CAIRO, (Reuters) – Egypt’s decision yesterday to  close the offices of Al Jazeera illustrates the leading role the  Arabic broadcaster has taken in reporting unprecedented popular  revolts against Arab rulers.

Egypt has often harassed the Qatar-based channel since it  started in 1996, setting off a revolution in Arab media in the  face of state-controlled information, but it had never before  tried to shut down its operations completely.

The channel led coverage of a Tunisian uprising that toppled  Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month, even though it was  already banned from the North African country.

Then, sensing that Tunisia’s example would set off copycat  movements elsewhere, the channel charted mobilisation in Egypt  that led to huge protests in the past week demanding the end of  President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.

“Al Jazeera saw the gravity of the situation (in Tunisia and  Egypt),” said Shadi Hamid of Doha’s Brookings Institute. “They  saw it was going to be big before other people did and that it  would stand as one of the historic moments in Arab history.”

Arab governments have often closed the offices of the  channel, which helped put tiny Gulf state Qatar on the map and  boosted its status as a leader of regional diplomacy.

A major oil and gas power, Qatar employs vast resources to  back the channel. This month it released a stack of secret  documents revealing embarrassing Palestinian Authority  concessions to Israel in peace talks.

A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks in  December said  U.S. diplomats saw Al Jazeera as a “bargaining  tool” used by Qatar in its foreign policy.  Emad Gad of the Al Ahram Strategic and Political Studies  Centre said the effort to smother Al Jazeera was the last effort  of a dying authoritarian system to control events in the  traditional heavy-handed manner.

He cited a government move to block the Internet and mobile  phone networks on Friday in an effort to stop people gathering.
“Is cutting the Internet or the mobile network in 2011 a  solution? This is equivalent to that. It’s the behaviour of a  dictatorial state breathing its last,” Gad said.
Social media and mobile phone technology have also been  cited as playing a major role in the street mobilisations of the  past month, which touched Yemen and Jordan too.

STATE TV TRIES  TO HIT BACK

Having ignored the protests for five days, Egyptian state TV  has now focussed on the disorder that erupted after security  forces withdrew from streets on Friday rather than the protests.   On Sunday state TV — which like other Arab official outlets  has tried to modernise to keep up with the Qatari trend-setter  — sniped against the station saying only a handful of  protesters were in central Cairo.

Yet, Al Jazeera continued to carry live images of crowds on  Tahrir, using a still camera fixed above the square. It also has  a live channel which Egypt tried to block on its Nilesat  satellite last week.

“We should have taken steps before with this channel since  it has caused more destruction than Israel for Egypt,” governor  of Minya province, Ahmed Diaeddin, raged on state TV. “I call  for the trial of Al Jazeera correspondents as traitors.”    Salah Issa, editor the state-owned weekly al-Qahira, said  Islamists often said to dominate Al Jazeera’s editorial line  were driven by a vendetta against Mubarak.

“It’s managers think they are creating a revolution, first  in Tunisia, now in Egypt,” he said. Saudi-owned Al Arabiya has been more conservative in  covering the Arab uprisings — less proactive in covering the  protests in the early stage and quicker to promote a return to  stability once concessions are offered.

As’ad AbuKhalil, a politics professor in the United States,  wrote on his popular site that Egyptian and Saudi media were  both trying to discredit the protest movement.
“House of Saud’s propaganda is on ov
er-drive. They are  really trying hard to discredit the protests in Egypt,“ he said,  citing a headline in Saudi-owned daily Asharq al-Awsat “Egypt  mutilates itself”.