Agencies/DohaQatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera said yesterday any move to shut it down was an attack on media freedom, following demands by Gulf neighbours for the channel to be taken off air. “We in the network believe that any call for closing down Al Jazeera is nothing but an attempt to silence the freedom of expression in the region and to suppress people’s right to information,” the broadcaster said in a statement. Al Jazeera added that it “deplores” calls for its closure. A leading British publication, The Guardian, published an editorial yesterday, referring in the headline to the demand to shut Al Jazeera as “muzzling journalism”. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, has said on Twitter: “The UAE and Saudi demand that Qatar shut down Al Jazeera doesn’t just punish Qatar; it punishes the millions of Arabs in the region from important news coverage.

Source: The North Africa Journal June 24, 2017 00:11 UTC