- LONDON (Reuters) - Banned on Wall Street and
wiped off the Internet, Arab news channel al-Jazeera defended its controversial
coverage of the Iraq war on Wednesday and demanded the United States come
to its aid in the name of a free press.
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- Al-Jazeera, which angered Washington by showing footage
of dead and captured American soldiers, voiced concern after two of its
reporters were banned from the New York Stock Exchange and its Web sites
were hacked.
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- The stock exchange stopped al-Jazeera broadcasts,
saying credentials were only for networks that provided "responsible"
coverage. Al-Jazeera was also denied a request to broadcast live from New
York's Nasdaq exchange.
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- "There has to be a national effort to protect
the freedom of the press even more," al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout
said. "We appeal to authorities to pay attention to this."
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- But in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell criticized al-Jazeera's coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
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- "Al-Jazeera has an editorial line and a way
of presenting news that appeals to the Arab public. They watch it and they
magnify the minor successes of the (Iraqi) regime. They tend to portray
our efforts in a negative light," Powell said in an interview with
National Public Radio, broadcast on Wednesday.
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- Powell did not comment on al-Jazeera's complaints,
but said he would wait to see what the channel reports "after we have
defeated this (Iraqi) regime."
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- "I think at that point the Arab public will
realize that we came in peace. We came as liberators, not conquerors,"
he said.
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- Al-Jazeera has taken the Arab world by storm since
its launch in 1996, with its controversial reporting and brash, Western
style drawing an audie nce of more than 35 million.
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- After making its name in the Afghan war with exclusive
footage of Osama bin laden, the Qatar-based satellite channel has also
had success in Europe, with viewers doubling since the start of the Iraq
war.
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- But the CNN of the Arab world raised U.S. ire when
on Sunday it aired shaken U.S. prisoners of war and dead U.S. soldiers
with gaping bullet wounds, prompting the Pentagon to issue an appeal to
U.S. networks not to use the footage.
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- Al-Jazeera on Wednesday showed pictures of what it
said were two dead British soldiers and two British prisoners of war.
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- EUROPEAN VIEWERS DOUBLE
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- In Europe, al-Jazeera said it had signed up more
than four million subscribers in the past week. But in the United States,
it has drawn little more than 100,000 subscribers.
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- "In Europe, we're naturally most popular in
countries with big Muslim populations like France. In Britain, we've also
seen a pick up in non-Arabic-speaking Muslims," Ballout said.
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- Viewers, who subscribe through local satellite operators,
are glued to the pictures even if they cannot understand the words. There
are no English-language subtitles.
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- Media pundits said the New York Stock Exchange decision
smacked of a dangerous opening salvo in a game of media tit-for-tat which
could see Western media's access cut off. Iraq last week ordered CNN journalists
to leave Baghdad.
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- "Clearly, it is a violation of press freedom,"
said Jeffrey Chester, executive d irector of the Center for Digital Democracy,
a media watchdog group in Washington, D.C.
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- Al-Jazeera's new English-language Web site (<http://english.aljazeera.net/>http://english.aljazeera.net),
which went live on Monday, and its Arabic-language site (<http://www.aljazeera.net/>http://www.aljazeera.net)
were downed by a hacker attack on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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