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From
BBC World News
http://www.bbc.co.uk
Al-Jazeera defends
war reports
May 24, 2003
Controversial Arab news
broadcaster al-Jazeera has said it was justified in showing images of dead and
captured coalition soldiers in the Iraq war.
Al-Jazeera outraged the
British and US governments and drew widespread condemnation which led to its journalists
being banned from the US stock exchange.
But station bosses have
defended its actions to the BBC's Correspondent programme, which had exclusive
access to al-Jazeera's operation as it broadcast the conflict from an Arabic perspective.
"This is part of disclosing
the real war and what is going on behind the scenes because there are many fronts
that we cannot see," said editor-in-chief Ibrahim Hilal.
"Once we get a bit of
information we have to tell the whole world what is really going on inside this
war even if it is horrible because this is part of our transparent job.
"What we are doing is
showing the reality. We didn't invent the bodies, we didn't make them in the graphics
unit. They are shots coming in from the field. This is the war.
"We have to show that
there are people killed in this war. The viewer has to judge whether war is the
most suitable way to solve problems.
"If I hide shots of British
or American people being killed, it is misleading to the British and American
audience.
"It is misleading to
the Arab audience if they imagine that the only victims of this war are the children
and women of Iraq. They have to know that there are victims from both sides."
Jihad Ballout, head of
al-Jazeera's media relations, denied accusations that the station had broken the
Geneva Convention by broadcasting the images.
"I'm not aware of any
international law that prevents a journalist from doing his job. Al-Jazeera is
not flavour of the month," he said.
Al-Jazeera later drew
condemnation from the Iraqi authorities, which tried to ban two journalists from
Baghdad, after the broadcaster showed the rapid advance of coalition troops towards
the capital.
But the station refused
to accept interference and threatened to withdraw from Iraq completely until the
ban was lifted 12 hours later.
"We will not accept any
authority telling us who should work and who should not," said Ibrahim Hilal.
"If we start allowing
this then next it will be: 'Remove this presenter' and the next step will be removing
the chief editor from the job and putting in another.
"Everyone will think that
it's easy to influence our decisions. It doesn't matter who doesn't like or who
does like al-Jazeera. What matters is our independence."
Head of newsgathering
Omar Bec said: "It proves a point to all those sceptics who ask me how come al-Jazeera
has full access. I tell them that we have the same access as every other TV station
out there. And this proves it."
As US troops entered Baghdad,
one of al-Jazeera's offices was hit by a tank shell, killing a journalist and
sparking outrage at the station.
"How can we have got hit
so direct? Everyone knows where we are. This is now twice this has happened to
us, in Afghanistan and now in Baghdad - which makes me question it," said Omar
Bec.
"If it was intentionally
targeted, it is a real disaster for journalism," said Ibrahim Hilal.
ENDS
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