Authorities in Iraq have barred the Baghdad correspondent of the Qatar-based pan-Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera from working for a period of ten days.
"The Iraqi authorities have forbidden Diar al-Umari from working for 10 days as a punishment for certain words used in his dispatches which the information ministry has deemed harmful to Iraq," a statement from Al-Jazeera said, quoted by AFP.
The television's management had still received no reply to a written request to the ministry for an explanation, the station added. "We vigorously contest any suggestion that Al-Jazeera has been prejudicial in its reporting of Iraq or any other Arab country," the television's editor-in-chief Ibrahim Hilal told AFP.
"Al-Jazeera has played a very big role and made huge efforts to cover in an objective and neutral manner the sufferings endured by the Iraqi people and the key speeches and responses of President Saddam Hussein."
Iraqi officials were not immediately available to comment on the reasons for the ban on the television station. It should be recalled that Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein chose Al-Jazeera to broadcast his reaction to the last US-led bombardment in December 1998. (Albawaba.com)
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