Punishment
To Al Jazeera Journalists: Saudi Vendetta Against Muslim Brotherhood
Saeed Naqvi
Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt were given severe sentences because that is the way the Saudis wanted it. The Qatari channel was always an eyesore to the Saudis but was recently being tolerated, even encouraged, by Riyadh for the limited purpose of stalling the Arab Spring.
A channel built on liberal, democratic
values owned by the Emirate of Qatar is a colossal contradiction in terms. But
despite the contradiction, its credibility was far in excess of CNN and BBC
which is why the Saudis first enlisted its support for the Libyan operations
which, for a while, overlapped with the Syrian operations too.
When Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani dethroned
his father in 1995 as the Emir of Qatar, the Saudis were very cross. It was a
bad precedent and violated the etiquette of Kingdoms and Emirates in the
region. The new Emir survived a coup attempt. Osama bin Laden’s war on the
House of Saud against the stationing of American troops in the land of Islam’s
holiest shrines provided an opportunity for Qatar to host CENTCOM, the great US
war machine. Saudi Arabia was upstaged again.
Then came the ultimate affront. Qatar
launched Al Jazeera, again thwarting a Saudi initiative. Saudi king Fahd’s
cousin, Khalid bin Faisal al Saud’s Orbit Communications had entered into an
agreement with BBC. The BBC was in urgent need of finances to boost its World
TV operations launched hurriedly because CNN international had stolen a march
by covering Operation Desert Storm in February 1991. CNN TV’s Peter Arnett was
launched as the world’s principal war correspondent from the terrace of
Baghdad’s Al Rasheed hotel at a time when John Simpson was still running around
Baghdad with a satellite telephone for BBC radio.
BBC’s arrangement with Saudi’s Orbit
Communications collapsed within fifteen months because Riyadh would not allow
the network to telecast a documentary on “beheading” as a punishment in the
Kingdom. Immediately, Qatar clasped BBCs hand and launched Al Jazeera.
After 9/11, when the Western media
launched their major propaganda offensives in the process of covering the
occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Saudis were a hundred percent
supportive. But Al Jazeera struck a discordant note. It began to project the
other side of the story. It became the sole outlet for Osama bin Laden’s
exclusive interviews. Viewership grew exponentially. This was also the time
when newborns in Afghanistan were named Osama as a matter of pride. This
unnerved the West.
My good friend, the late Fouad Ajami, an
unlikely Neo Con, wrote editorials damning Al Jazeera. Colin Powel was livid.
Al Jazeera offices in Kabul and Baghdad were bombed. The channel’s principal
correspondent was jailed in Spain, of all places. But its popularity kept soaring,
for these very reasons.
In fact, Western high handedness
conferred on al Jazeera something of a halo. It looked like a David surrounded
by a range of Goliaths, further magnifying the anti US-Saudi sentiment in the
region.
Despite his adverse chemistry with the
Emir of Qatar, Saudi King Abdullah sought al Jazeera’s help in stalling the
Arab spring. It had by February 2011 taken a toll of western friends like Hosni
Mubarak in Cairo and Zain el Abedin Ben Ali
in Tunis.
Why was Al Jazeera’s credibility so
avidly sought? Because Western electronic media had exhausted all its
credibility in the West Asian wars since Operation Desert Storm and post 9/11
occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Western media’s coverage of the colour
“revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia and Lebanon also strained its credibility.
So singularly lacking in credibility was
the Western media in the military operations in Libya and Syria, that Al
Jazeera’s help was sought to shore up some credibility.
Western networks and social sites had
carried so much exaggeration and downright lies on both, Libya and Syria, that at
the earlier stages it was proving difficult to whip up a peoples movement inside
the two theatres of operations.
The US was working on new technologies
to dissemble in the midst of military operations. James Glanz and John Markoff
of the New York Times wrote:
“The State Department is financing the
creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to
communicate outside their reach” in countries like Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq.
After a cruel end to the Qaddafi saga,
and the stalemate in Syria, the Saudis found that the Qataris were punching
above their weight, trying to mediate between the Taleban and Kabul, linking up
the Muslim Brotherhood strands in Egypt, Turkey and Hamas – in each instance
upstaging Riyadh. If there is one group the Saudis are even more paranoid about
than Iran, it is the Akhwan ul Muslimeen or the Muslim Brotherhood which is
ideologically opposed to the institution of the King in Saudi Arabia. Hence the
Saudi’s instant support to Abdel Fattah el Sisi’s coup ousting Mohammad Morsi and
the Brothers.
Saudis by now have squeezed as much of
the Al Jazeera lemon as they could in Libya and Syria. During days of Saudi co-operation
with Qatar in Libya and Syria, Al Jazeera entrenched itself in Egypt too. The
House of Saud barely tolerated the burgeoning romance between the Brothers and
Al Jazeera.
The day Morsi fell, Saudis placed $10
billion in Sisi’s treasury and purchased for themselves the right to eradicate
Muslim Brotherhood and its support base. The harsh punishment meted out to the
Al Jazeera’s journalists, is in effect Riyadh getting even with the “cheeky”
Emirate of Qatar on that score.
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