RAMALLAH, West Bank: The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday banned Al-Jazeera television from operating in its territory and threatened legal action over allegations it broadcast against President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Information Ministry said the Qatar-based Arabic news channel had spread falsehoods and incited viewers against the authorities that run the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The ministry said allegations carried on Al-Jazeera on Tuesday and attributed to a senior figure in Abbas’ Fatah party, Farouq Al-Qadoumi, were untrue. The channel quoted Al-Qadoumi as saying Abbas conspired with Israel to kill his predecessor Yasser Arafat in 2003. Arafat died in a Paris hospital in 2004 of an undisclosed ailment.
“Al-Jazeera television has been devoting significant segments of its broadcasts to incitement against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Authority,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Despite our repeated calls (on Al-Jazeera) to remain objective when it covers Palestinian affairs and to voice a balanced position regarding the internal Palestinian situation, the channel is still inciting,” it said. In a report on the ban, an Al-Jazeera presenter said the channel “expressed its astonishment about this decision by the Palestinian Authority and said it will issue a statement to answer the accusations of the Palestinian Ministry of Information.”
Al-Jazeera, the presenter said, was one of several news operations to report remarks by Al-Qadoumi about an alleged scheme to kill Arafat. The broadcaster aired a half-hour special on the allegations. Three Palestinian plainclothes security men visited its bureau in Ramallah on Wednesday to deliver a written order to cease work. “The staff of Al-Jazeera are not allowed to work, not allowed to broadcast, and crews are not allowed to work in the field until the judiciary issues its verdict,” said Adnan Damiri, spokesman for the Palestinian security service. “We will be monitoring them.”
The Jerusalem-based Foreign Press Association issued a statement expressing deep concern and urging the Palestinian Authority to reconsider in line with its stated commitment to freedom of the press. Naim Tobassy, Head of Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, described the decision as “hasty” and urged the Palestinian Authority to rethink, “because it hurts the freedom of press.”
