A group of Arabs in Europe is demanding an end to Al-Jazeera broadcasts on the continent.
A few Arab activists are circulating a petition accusing the Qatar-based broadcaster of fostering extremism among European Arab youth and supporting terrorism, according to a report by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute. The activists are demanding the channel be banned from European TV.
The petition also calls for a boycott of Qatar for exporting hate.
Its initiators remain anonymous, but MEMRI said the campaign was posted primarily on Iraqi Web sites after Iraqi exile Joseph Shallal initiated the plea in an article published Nov. 28 on the Arab Modern Discussion Web site.
MEMRI cited Shallal as writing that the 10-year-old channel should be blocked because it challenges the very principles of freedom and human rights that have attracted so many Arab refugees to Europe.
Al-Jazeera TV “has already been prevented from operating in many countries, and some of its presenters and technical crew have been arrested for their involvement in aiding obscurantist terrorist forces like Al-Qaeda and others,” Shallal wrote, according to MEMRI’s translation. “The time has come for Al-Jazeera TV, whose name has become ‘the bin Laden channel,’ to face its day of reckoning on the European continent.”
