Independent Arab TV network al-Jazeera has become the alternative voice of the Middle East media. Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, reports from Doha
Earlier this week, the al-Jazeera Arabic language network inaugurated an English-language website (english.aljazeera.net). Almost immediately, right-wing American computer hackers disrupted the site so that al-Jazeera's content was replaced on Thursday with a US flag and the message "Let Freedom Ring". The small print said, "Hacked by Patriot Freedom Cyber Militia".
This was reported to have been dealt with but further attacks were launched on the site which was even diverted to a pornography outlet at one stage. In the language of cyberspace, "waves of spam" were directed at the site for most of the week and the official launch has now been postponed until mid-April. Meanwhile, two of the network's journalists were reportedly banned from the New York Stock Exchange.
It was yet another example of the attention and controversy the Qatar-based network has aroused since its foundation in 1996. Al-Jazeera ("the island") was born out of the demise of BBC Arabic Television, a BBC partnership with a Saudi company, which was shut down after the Saudis tried to censor a documentary on executions carried out under their strict Muslim regime.
The closure was a setback for free speech, but the vision remained alive of an independent television news service from the Middle East that would be free from the control of authoritarian Arab governments and devoid of the daft conspiracy theories, repetitive anti-Zionist ranting and sycophancy towards corrupt regimes associated with many state-controlled networks in the region. The BBC Arabic service was succeeded by al-Jazeera, which employed many of the same journalists.
The new satellite channel was located in Doha and funded by the Emir of Qatar and other Arab moderates who realised that an objective and reliable news service was fundamentally a better proposition than censorship.
But political and military leaders in countries dedicated to free speech as a basic right did not immediately appreciate the value of this spiky new addition to the Arab media world. About a month after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell condemned al-Jazeera for screening "vitriolic, irresponsible kinds of statements" when it showed a videotape of Osama bin Laden praising the 9/11 attacks. Worse still, it was put about that bin Laden had used the broadcast to send coded signals to his followers and US media outlets were requested not to show the tape as a result.
In almost eight years of existence, al-Jazeera has been attacked by almost every Middle Eastern government and its offices in the region are shut down from time to time as a result of news reports about official corruption in a number of these countries. Israeli politicians and commentators who are scarcely seen on other Middle East stations are regular contributors on al-Jazeera, which is dedicated to balanced coverage.
Bush administration officials were said to be calling the network, "Osama Television" but their frosty attitude changed after a time and interviews were granted with Powell and the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Here at the Coalition Media Centre in Doha, we were initially told that al-Jazeera was getting the best of attention from the military people. Given the network's estimated 35 million viewers, this policy made sense.
But there has been a renewed chill in relations since the war started in earnest. Al-Jazeera showed Iraqi state television footage of dead and captured US personnel and, when one of its reporters asked a question at the next day's news conference, a senior US commander said he was "very disappointed" at what they had done. Lt Gen John Abizaid, deputy commander of US Central Command, said the showing of the pictures was "absolutely unacceptable" and "disgusting".
There was further criticism of the network when it screened film of dead British soldiers. Air Marshal Brian Burridge described it as "deplorable". Exclusives were all very well but "all media outlets must be aware of the limits of taste and decency and be wary that they do not unwittingly become tools for Iraqi propaganda".
A regular presence at briefings here is Omar al-Issawi, Lebanese by origin and a fluent English-speaker, who is a presenter and producer with al-Jazeera. He has been with the network since the beginning, in September 1996, having previously worked with the BBC's Arabic service. Responding to the latest criticisms, he says people should see it in the context of al-Jazeera's output over the years: "There is no malicious intent."
An Arabic audience reacted differently from Western viewers to such footage: "We have a much higher tolerance or threshold in this region, than you do in the West, for what kind of images are acceptable. I'm Lebanese and it is not unusual for Lebanese people, for example, to have seen human body-parts in the flesh as a result of a car-bomb, or to see corpses in the street, people who had fallen during the 15-year civil war."
Other Arab broadcasting networks have shown the same footage this week but nobody is criticising them for it, because they do not have as big an audience as al-Jazeera, he argues.
"Al-Jazeera broke the mould, broke the taboo, because before al-Jazeera you didn't have any independent Arab broadcasters, they were all government mouthpieces. We were the first, and basically I think this gave people hope that you would hear criticisms of Arab governments for the first time ever. And now we have more competition, there are more stations and networks starting up here and there, which is very, very refreshing in this part of the world where we have just been used to one side of the story for decades."