Iraqi parliament agrees to sue al-Jazeera TV

Source: Voice of Iraq

Baghdad, May 9, (VOI)-The Iraqi parliament unanimously agreed on Wednesday to file a lawsuit against al-Jazeera television for allegedly giving offence to Iraqi religious leaders.

At the beginning of the parliamentary session held on Wednesday, presided over by House Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, Iraqi parliamentarians condemned the attack that they said the Qatari al-Jazeera satellite channel launched on top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani when it said "he was appointed by Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq."

"Al-Sistani is fruitful tree. He has a long and well-known history," al-Mashhadani said in the session attended by a correspondent for the independent news agency Voice of Iraq (VOI).

MP Khalaf al-Alyan from the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) called for taking "strict" measures against the channel, noting, "All religious clerics in Iraq are sacred and their sanctity should not be violated."


Read more: http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=43915&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Bet the 'kids' that wrote the draft Iraqi constitution are all so proud!

What a load of shit, frankly.

If a cleric wants to get involved in politics, he's not sacred, and he's open to criticism. They need to get over themselves.

I'm not sure that should be taken as a political offense but, it is a factually untrue assertion and Sistani is not involved in politics in the sense of running for office or becoming a supreme leader above regular politics like they have in Iran; that's not his thing and it's not consistent with his philosophy.

I wouldn't file a lawsuit over it; I'd ask for a correction. But I don't want to go the other direction and somehow lend any support to religiously provocative untruths. Sistani is not Paul Bremer's poodle. Never was.

"hold office." If you are an Ayatullah, you're a "guardian" and you ARE part and parcel of the Judicial system, in essence.

It's totally sick. Iraq is gonna go down the halfassed, fucked up road that Iran stumbled down, and quickly, too, if they can't find a way to divvy up the pie and give everyone their share while remaining federated in some fashion--otherwise, stand by for fracture in a big way. And the people, the WOMEN mostly, will pay through the nose if they can't pull it together.

You've gotta ask the "Who benefits?" question when looking at this entire picture. Who benefits from kicking AJ out of Iraq? Who benefits from marginalizing them as a news source for information about Iraq? Who benefits from cutting off their access to what's going on in the country, and telling the brutal truth about it?

AJ, of course, is run out of Qatar, which is predominantly Sunni...not that this is necessarily a factor, but it could be perceived as one, certainly.

Who's whispering about how evil AJ is? Who's suggesting...oh, I dunno...that they're affiliated with:

The Saudis?

The Americans?

Any non-Shi'a actors, to include the Kurds?

Or ANY entity that opposes the efforts of the 'pan-Shi'as' in the region?

Hey, it's just a few questions...but it questions that I doubt some parties want to answer anytime soon...!

Granted, a lot of Iraqis want it to be one. Granted. But I will politely ignore the rest of your vast rant due to irrelevance. Iraq is not an Islamic nation, so your whole premise, starting with your subject line, is untenable. Sistani is not a public official. He simply is not. Evils of pan-Shiism aside, I refuse to make this man into something he's not for the purpose of ripping him. To the extent that the Al-Jazeera report did just that, it is wrong, regardless of what other evils others have committed in this wide world.

:hide:

I hate it when some of my fav DU'ers spar, but I always learn something.. :hugs: to you both

is passing on basic, well understood information that isn't really "news..."

Sheesh. Whatchagonnado, I guess...

Believe me, I do not close my eyes and ears to all the misogynist junk that comes out of Sistani or the people much worse than he. Do take care.

Saddam tossed up on it off, now, did they?



The Iraqi Constitution says that Islam is the national religion, and the basis for the laws of Iraq. That's an Islamic country. It may be "Islamic-Democratic" but it's Islamic FIRST.

The first words of the document are In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, "Verily we have honored the children of Adam" (Qur'an 17: 70) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-08-24-iraqi-constitution-draft_x.htm

The 'money' quote:

Article (1): The Republic of Iraq is an independent, sovereign nation, and the system of rule in it is a democratic, federal, representative (parliamentary) republic.

Article (2):

1st — Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation:

(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.

(b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy.

(c) No law can be passed that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution.

2nd — This constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and the full religious rights for all individuals and the freedom of creed and religious practices.



That's pretty unambiguous. It's also pretty common knowledge, too.

Ali Allawi, who wrote a book on the subject of the war, provides some interesting insight into Ayatullah al-Sistani's viewpoint. I'll agree with his take more than yours, frankly (and, FWIW, he is a shi'a, also):

It has become commonplace, for example, to say that the Americans were woefully ignorant of Iraq's turbulent history and tangled sociology. Mr Allawi goes much further, arguing persuasively that they fundamentally misread Iraq's political culture. They simultaneously overrated the power of its secular middle class and underestimated the attachment of the majority Shias to their faith and to their religious leaders. The idea that the mass of Iraqi Shias would be willing accomplices in their country's makeover into a secular, liberal democracy—which America's neo-conservatives clung to as an article of faith—was absurd.

This fundamental error led to others. There was the naive belief that Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior Shia cleric, favoured the separation of mosque and state when, in fact, it was he more than anyone else who was to secure the electoral triumph of the Shia Islamists. And the young firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr was written off as a street thug rather than the leader of a loose-knit but significant grassroots movement among the Shia poor....A devout man, he is sympathetic to Shia Islamism, though by no means blind to its excesses. He acknowledges that Iran is stirring the Iraqi pot but has no time for the shriller forms of Iran-bashing.

One can dissent from one or other of these positions. But the thing about Mr Allawi is that reasonableness keeps breaking through. “It might have been otherwise,” he laments, more in sorrow than in anger, as he reflects on the whole sorry saga. Might it? People such as Mr Allawi, who put their faith in the invasion of Iraq, are entitled to feel betrayed.



http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9033292

You shouldn't accuse people of "ranting" when you are speaking from utter ignorance of the basic document that is the foundation of the country. I'd say this foundational document is ENTIRELY "relevant" even if you don't happen to think so.

You might want to hit the books on the subject.

When Saddam put that on the flag, it was a cheap appeal to religion by a secular thug hated by real Islamic radicals like Osama Bin Laden.

I was well aware of that constitutional stuff because I was paying close attention while the document was being drafted. The thing is, none of this - none. of. this. - in any way makes Sistani a judge in the secular sense, none of it makes him a creature of Paul Bremer, none of his backing an electoral alliance without running for office himself makes him a creature of Paul Bremer, nor does it make him a politician any more than the Pope is; and Bremer did not appoint that Shiite coalition, it was elected. Yes, Sistani supported a lot of politicians who swore loyalty to Shiite Islamic philosophies in matters of state, but he's an "object of emulation," not personally a skull cracker. (For his part, Allawi knows a thing or two about cracking skulls but that's neither here nor there.)

I'm saying that Sistani is a lot of things but he is not the one isolated thing that Al Jazeera apparently accused him of being. Therefore, he should be criticized for the things he is - which you have done, and which I in no way or shape or form whatsoever hold against you - and not for the things he isn't.

Honestly, I could care what Bremer thought. If Bremer had gotten his way, the flag would have been light blue, yellow, dark blue and white. The flag they kept is the flag they wanted. It matched their Constitution, certainly.

I've lived in Islamic countries, and the Ayatullahs are judge, jury and executioner. In some venues, you get to pick--do you want the "regular" court, or the "sharia" court. In some cases, religion requires that you check BOTH blocks, like the conundrum this Australian woman found herself in: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/until-two-legal-systems-do-us-part/2007/05/04/1177788404897.html

Her situation isn't uncommon in nations that don't have a Muslim majority, either.

They actually tried to get a Sharia court started in Canada, but that got quashed.

Ayatullah al-Sistani IS a judge, as far as his adherents are concerned. He is also a politician, and a LEADER...and his peeps see nothing wrong with that at all. That's just the way it is, and it makes total sense to them. This concept is difficult for some to wrap their arms around, but Sistani's words carry MORE weight than those of some guy in a black robe with a gavel, in a nation that puts Sharia front and center.

I stand by my assertion that al-Sistani, despite his sequestering and his leadership by fetwah, is involved in public and political life. I never averred that he was "appointed" by Bremer, mind you. Last year, post-Bremer, mind you, he angrily said he was leaving "politics" and taking his ball and going home (even though that hasn't stopped his fetwah-issuing). You can't leave politics if you aren't in it. Hell, by his OWN words we shall know him:

The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.

Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks.


Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
"I will not be a political leader any more," he told aides. "I am only happy to receive questions about religious matters."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/03/wirq03.xml

He didn't stick to that promise, though:

The Iranian-born al-Sistani is Shia Islam's leading cleric and commands huge respect in both Iran and Iraq.

Last week he held talks with Ali Larijani, Iran's top national security official, in the Shia holy city of Najaf. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8A9F14B5-8C66-4F45-A2D7-3F557E5743FE.htm



You don't meet with representatives of governments if you aren't taking a political role, generally, unless you've won the World Series or are Teacher of the Year. Regardless, at the end of the day, al-Sistani has acknowledged his political role more than once, and I just find this absurd rehashing of the old Bremer brouhaha (the sequence of events is better explained in the cite immediately above this paragraph) and whining about AJ awfully suspicious AND convenient.

The whole story is not so cut-and-dried as the angry mob wants one to think, either--they're painting this entire thing, as I said above, as a Shi'a VS Sunni spat, and not without reason, because that IS what they want it to be--it's as though they WANT Iraq to fracture into three entities. And they also are being deliberately shirty in that they refuse to accept AJ's apology, and they're dragging the Emir of Qatar into the mix as well:

"Today, we burn down Al-Jazeera," chanted the protesters who carried portraits of al-Sistani. Others demanded that the channel as well as Qatar be sued. One Najaf protester carried several pictures of Qatar's emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, with a shoe hoisted on the images to show contempt for him.

"There was no offense directed at al-Sistani and Al-Jazeera doesn't approve of offending anyone," Al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief Ahmed al-Sheik told The Associated Press from Doha, the Qatari capital. "We have the utmost respect and appreciation of all religious leaders, foremost of whom is al-Sistani."

The furor over the perceived insults against al-Sistani in "Without Borders," one of the channel's flagship programs, underlined the esteem in which the majority Shiites hold their clergy and showcased the sensitivity attached to the question of whether al-Sistani is meddling in politics or simply offering broad guidelines at a crucial time in the country's history.

There was no comment from al-Sistani, who does not grant media interviews, rarely appears in public and communicates his views in edicts, or fatwas. But his representative in the holy city of Karbala told worshippers there Friday that Al-Jazeera was trying to drive a wedge between al-Sistani and his followers by suggesting that the cleric supports foreign occupation.

"This is an outrage directed at our religious leaders and undermine their spiritual standing in the eyes of Iraqi people," Sheik Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalai said in his Friday sermon at the Imam Hussein mosque.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, Al-Jazeera has been seen by Shiite politicians as championing the former leader's rule and the Sunni insurgency. The 24-hour news channel has been banned from operating in Iraq since 2004 and the latest controversy is likely to worsen its already tense relations with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4777325.html

But wait...there's more:

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=247004

The Iranian parliament has banned the Tehran correspondents of the Qatar-based news network al-Jazeera after the channel allegedly insulted Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani...Parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel said the correspondents would not be allowed to attend parliamentary sessions until the network apologized for the insult, which he termed 'a plot masterminded by the enemies of Islam and Iraq.'

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini accused the network of having contributed to further tensions in Iraq through its remarks about the Ayatollah.

The Egyptian host of al-Jazeera's talk show 'Without Borders' last week questioned the legitimacy of the leadership of Iranian-born Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shia cleric.

Al-Jazeera has a strong presence in Tehran with two offices, one for the Arabic and one for the international section....The al-Jazeera office in Tehran was temporarily closed in April 2005 for alleged provocation of the Arab minority in south-western Iran.

The news network also came under severe attack in 2004 over a cartoon on its website mocking Iran's dispute with National Geographic magazine over the terms Persian Gulf and Arabian Gulf.

There seems to be a bit of cross-border cooperation happening with regard to the shi'a "outrage" meter. Of course, that likely has something to do with the fact that al-Sistani was actually born in IRAN. This is clearly orchestrated, and the outrage, while initially perhaps sincere, is now coming across as deliberate and feigned. It doesn't bode well for a continued, unified government.


PS--on edit, for whatever it is worth, that's a DIFFERENT Allawi who wrote the book, not the thug.

(Editing - not liking how the original came off as much as I'd like. - K) The beef with Al-Jazeera is basically that it said Sistani was/is Bremer's poodle. al-Sistani is plenty of things but he is not that. The other stuff would otherwise matter except that it is not the actual subject of the current outrage against Al-Jazeera, which certainly has broader political overtones but is still about one specific, narrow matter.

Al-Jazeera's factually incorrect. My view is simply that it's pointless to defend Al-Jazeera for being wrong just because one can very legitimately, very passionately argue that Sistani is wrong about a/b/c/d other things. Al-Jazeera's still wrong in this one case.

And that doesn't change the fact that the Shiite alliance in the Maliki government is unwise in launching a lawsuit over this and is creating much mischief with the issue. It's just really, really unfortunate that Al-Jazeera gave them a legitimate beef with which to launch the outrage wave.

They're doing it on purpose. They're organizing demonstrations. They're bringing up old commentary from two years ago to fan the flames. This latest "insult" coincides with al-Sistani having a meeting with Iran's National Security Advisor just a short while ago in Najaf. And look what ELSE was going on down that way:

Iraq's top Shia cleric has censured outside pressures by the US on Iraqi government to push ahead with 'hasty' reformations in Iraq's constitution. ..."Ayatollah Sistani does not favor the Iraqi parliament pursuing the US-mandated constitutional reforms in such haste", Al-Ibadi noted.

On Monday a senior delegation comprising members of Dawa Party met with Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf, southern Iraq, where the ayatollah called for more attention to be paid to securing the rights and security of the Iraqi public, providing basic services to the people and cracking down on corruption.

"Ayatollah Sistani expressed his disapproval of those Iraqi officials that put their personal interests before Iraq's national interests and urged that a stronger sense of brotherhood be adopted among the Iraqis especially Shias and Sunnis."

Al-Ibadi, who is a close ally of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, rebuffed US administration's threats of halting economic aid to Iraq as unacceptable political leverage.

The United States has persistently forced the Iraqi government to meet certain political benchmarks like involving more elements form the former Baathist party and apportioning the country's national oil revenues on a fair base among its 16 provinces....

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=9191§ionid=351020201

The US is saying "Get off your asses and come to some kind of accord" (benchmarks) and this guy and his cohorts are saying "Eh, no rush..." That just might make someone wonder just WHY he doesn't want to move things along, so the damned occupiers will hurry up and leave. Of course, if your friends across the border want to keep making trouble, it's all well and good to be obstructionists, the better to put stress on Monkeyboy's crew--you end up getting the result you want at the end of it all, AND you can make the Monkey look like an ass on the world stage as well. It's a two-fer.

And likely, it was no accident that Big Dick (stand still so I can shoot ya) Cheney hopped on a plane this morning to go give those guys the (gotta say it) "Come to Jesus" speech. I'm sure they were told in no uncertain terms that they'd cut off the gravy train in a hurry if they didn't get the spirit. We'll see if this stuff keeps up--Iran doesn't have the dough to throw around that the US does, all they have is a shared border and a common religion with a good chunk of the poor population of Iraq. But they do love to yank the BushCo chain...and that kind of sport does wonders for both Persian AND Arab pride.

It is painfully apparent that there's quite an orchestra playing, here. I mean, really. People in the southern shi'a slums who won't understand arcane talks by Cheney and al-Maliki about something called benchmarks will clearly and angrily understand an "insult to Sistani." And AJ is a convenient target, because they're a favorite whipping boy and have been for awhile, by everyone, the US included.

If AJ isn't a tool of the Sunni Ba'athists, or the Hizb'allah in Lebanon, they're the tool of the ZIONISTS (that's the latest charge): http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-236/0705092212212228.htm They must be doing something right, everyone hates them and accuses them of backing their enemies.

They're claiming that AJ is trying to drive a wedge, but they're doing the very same thing by playing the victim card, refusing to buckle down with the other elements of the government and resolve differences, AND refusing to accept AJ's apology. And they keep beating the horse, even after it's long dead.

Here's the apology they haven't accepted:

"We affirm that the policy of Al-Jazeera is based on respecting religious and public figures. There was no intention at all to offend his Eminence Sistani," Khanfar said in a statement.

He also protested the labelling of Al-Jazeera as favouring Iraq's Sunni Arabs in its coverage of the raging sectarian strife in the war-torn country.

"We are accused of being the Sunni spearhead in Iraq, but (contrarily) we were also accused during last summer's (Israel's) war of backing the Shiites in Lebanon," he said.

http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070509085025.y8harax6&cat=null

..Anyway, small potatoes either way.

This all started because I responded to your comment about Sistani getting involved with politics and therefore being open to criticism. My point is that the criticism in this case was factually false.

I completely agree with you that rejection of the apology is pure politics and quite a bit of BS, put frankly.

From an Egyptian? Good luck! Especially on the Persian end--when the Persians hold up their ancient, non-Arab Omar Khayam culture, as though it's somehow 'better' than those desert wandering and city-squabbling fools just over their borders, the Egyptians respond to it all with a Pharonic "Pffffffft!"

The commentator who made the particular remark runs an opinion show; I frankly feel the injured parties ought to go after the individual host and tell him he gets no more Iraqi/Iranian shi'a guests until he gets the spirit, and not punish the whole network. This crazy drama about the incident is why I just smell some stank up in here.

I mean, really, should one heap the sins of Imus on Olbermann? Brian Williams? The cast of Saturday Night Live and the Today Show crew? That's what the Iranians AND Iraqis are doing.

But when all is said and done, AJ is popular over that way...how long can the Shi'a faithful hold out from grabbing the remote and stabbing in the numbers to bring it up? Not long, I'd wager--apology or no apology.

since when had the Iraqi parliament allowed Al-Jazeera BACK IN to begin with!? I thought they'd kicked AJ out for good.

Edit: See, maddezmom, we're on the same page, we were just navigating in different paragraphs :)

Britons found guilty of breaching Official Secrets Law
Britons found guilty of breaching Official Secrets Law

LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - A civil servant and a political aide were convicted of breaching Britain's Official Secrets Act on Wednesday for leaking a classified memo of a meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush.

David Keogh, a code specialist at a top security government communications centre, was found guilty of making a copy of the memo of talks held in the White House in April 2004 and handing it to Leo O'Connor, a political researcher.

Both Keogh, 50, and O'Connor, 44, had pleaded not guilty to the charges of making a "damaging disclosure". They are due to be sentenced on Thursday.

Key parts of the three-week trial were held behind closed doors. The judge ruled that the contents of the memo could not be revealed, referred to or reported in any way other than as they were discussed in open court.

more:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2839830#2839979

At least the Iraqis aren't calling for the employees of al-Jazeera to be killed. I suppose that's progress.