DOHA, 16 December 2005 — The Al-Jazeera news channel refused yesterday to be held responsible for the allegedly defamatory remarks aimed at Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani that instigated angry demonstrations in Iraq.
“What guests say (during programs) does not necessarily represent the position of the channel,” said Al-Jazeera General Director Wadah Khanfar.
In a debate aired late Tuesday on Al-Jazeera, the London-based Iraqi writer Fadel Al-Rubaye said Shiite religious leaders had “favored the entry of American troops in Iraq” and had urged Iraqis not to resist the occupation.
“Al-Jazeera’s aggression against the Iraqi people reached its climax yesterday with insults against Sayyed Sistani,” the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said in a statement.
The party condemned what it called a “serious attack on our sacred symbols” and urged “all Iraqis to act quickly and urgently to stop these attackers”.
Responding to calls to dismiss the program anchor, Khanfar said “it was the guest and not the presenter who uttered” the allegedly offensive statement.
“We have cut some of what the guest had said when the program was replayed,” he said, adding that Al-Jazeera “respects Sayyed Sistani, and all other religious leaders in the Muslim world.” In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, demonstrators on foot and in pick-up trucks, with others providing a motorcycle escort, ignored a three-day ban on motor vehicles and paraded in the streets chanting: “Sayyed Ali, the people are with you!”
Al-Jazeera has regularly been accused of a bias in favor of Iraqi insurgents and has been banned by the government from sending correspondents to the country.
Shortly before Baghdad fell in April 2003, Sistani’s office denied he had issued a religious edict urging Iraqis not to impede the US-led coalition forces, Al-Jazeera reported at the time, while US officials said that he had.
