SINGAPORE,
June 4, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Saturday, June 4, accused Al-Jazeera Arab
news channel of encouraging militant groups by broadcasting beheadings
of foreign hostages in Iraq.
"If
anyone lived in the Middle East and watched a network like the
Al-Jazeera day after day after day, even if he was an American, he
would start waking up and asking what's wrong. But America is not
wrong. It's the people who are going on television chopping off
people's heads, that is wrong," told a security conference in
Singapore.
"And
television networks that carry it and promote it and jump on the spark
every time there is a terrorist act are promoting the acts,"
Rumsfeld charged.
More
than 150 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq in the past year. Some
have been released but about one third have been killed.
Nicknamed
the CNN of the Arab world, the Doha-based Al Jazeera is the
most-watched channel in the Arab world.
Launched
in 1996, Al-Jazeera ranked the fifth most influential global brand in
an annual survey by Brandchannel.com.
It
won over millions of Arab viewers before and during the US-led war
against Afghanistan, and aired exclusive footage of Al-Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks.
The
channel has angered some Arab governments as well as Washington with
its coverage of the war in Iraq and interviews with Arab dissidents.
Inaccurate
Al-Jazeera's
media spokesman, Jihad Ballout, denied the allegations.
"Al-Jazeera
has never ever shown a beheading of any hostage," he was quoted
as saying by the channel's English Web site.
"While
we work hard to give a comprehensive and balanced account of
everything that goes on in Iraq - people clearly have a right to know
what is happening on the ground - we have never broadcast images of a
hostage being beheaded," Ballout said.
He
pointed out that beheading videos were readily available on the
internet and had made it on to other television networks.
"And
because of Al-Jazeera's reputation, people mistakenly attribute the
pictures to us."
Reuters
confirmed that Al-Jazeera has often shown video of hostages pleading
at gunpoint for their government to withdraw its troops but never
broadcast killings posted on Internet Web sites by militants.
Bombed
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"Al-Jazeera has never ever shown a beheading of any hostage," Ballout said emphatically.
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In
September, Rumsfeld said that "over and over again we've seen
that Middle Eastern television channel Al-Jazeera that seems to have a
wonderful way of being Johnny-on-the-spot a little too often for my
taste".
On
April 8, 2003, US forces hit
with missiles Al-Jazeera's office in Baghdad, killing
its correspondent Tariq Ayyoub just a few hours before rolling into
the capital.
The
channel officials charged the missile attack was a “deliberate”
strike, recalling that Al-Jazeera office in Afghanistan had been hit
in November 2001 during the US-led invasion.
On
April 9, 2004, the United States asked
Al-Jazeera team to leave Fallujah after the channel aired footages
showing the American forces violating a ceasefire in the western
Baghdad city.
US-allied
Iraqi authorities have closed Al-Jazeera's office in Iraq
indefinitely, drawing condemnation from media watchdogs, including
Reporters without Borders and the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists.
