“While the ministry (spokesman Abdul Rahman Al-Hazza) confirms that the Lebanese channel LBC’s Bold Red Line program was prepared taking important points from the interview it had conducted with Abdul Jawad, it says the channel did this without making any distortions. How can we explain this contradiction? What is the definition of montage?” the lawyer said.

He also said he never mentioned anything in his defense of Abdul Jawad about an “outside voice or reading of text” as the ministry had said in its press statement on Wednesday.

“What I said was that there was distortion by omission, which is montage in its sense as defined by the ministry’s Committee on Press and Printing Violations,” he said.

Referring to the ministry’s claims that “all the people who appeared in the program knew that television cameras were filming them,” Al-Jumaie said his client appeared in the program because he was confident that he was dealing with a TV channel that was licensed by the ministry and that its program was coordinated by the ministry’s staff and with its knowledge. “LBC did not respond to your esteemed committee and did not appear before it despite the fact that it had been subpoenaed,” he said, referring to the ministerial panel investigating the case.

“Your committee copied segments of the dialogue from the Internet and issued its decision (based on them). If LBC’s report was technically sound as you have claimed, why did you call the channel to appear before the committee? If the violations were not the reason behind the closure of LBC’s offices in the Kingdom and if its report was technically sound as you claim, why did you order the closure?”

He said the ministry’s committee did not punish the channel but only confirmed a decision that was already made by a higher authority.

“The committee has no right to ascertain a decision issued by a higher authority,” Al-Jumaie said in reply to Al-Hazza’s comments.

The lawyer pointed out another contradiction in the ministry’s statement issued on Wednesday that it was responsible for all cases involving print and publications.

“In its statement today, the ministry is saying it looks into cases involving media persons only,” he said. “Are all media cases referred to the Shariah courts or is it only my client, which is an exception?” he asked.