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Al Jazeera Closing of office by Iraq is antithesis of democracy August 11, 2004 Closing Al Jazeera's Baghdad office for at least a month has to qualify as one of the most foolish actions taken by the interim Iraqi government. Al Jazeera, based in nearby Qatar, will undoubtedly still receive and air the type of reports and heinous videotapes, such as beheadings of hostages, that led Iraqi authorities to say the network advocates violence. The government will reap nothing from dashing hopes for a free press except questions about its commitment to democracy. Worse still, the interim Iraqi government has established a news-regulating committee, which Al Jazeera says has accused the network known as the CNN of the Arab world of being hostile. That suggests more censorship is to come. For the English-speaking record, Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib was quoted by CNN as saying Al Jazeera had "encouraged the criminals and the gangsters to increase their activities in the country, which has suffered a lot." The line between covering reprehensible acts and encouraging them can be excruciatingly hard to draw, especially during unstable times. But a government cannot draw that line, because other motives get tangled in -- most often the fact that turmoil casts it in a bad light, too. Unfortunately, the Iraqis can say they're following the lead of former U.S. occupation chief Paul Bremer, who closed a newspaper in March, saying it incited violence. Last month, as a concession to the cleric who ran it, the interim Iraqi government let the paper reopen.
Approximate Word count = 957
Approximate Pages = 3.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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