Thursday, November 24, 2005

Qatar shock at al-Jazeera bombing report

Times

Qataris, including senior officials, reacted with shock on Wednesday to newspaper reports in Britain suggesting that George W Bush, the US president, had discussed bombing the Doha headquarters of the Arabic satellite TV channel al-Jazeera.

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“I thought this was just a rumour, but now the UK has used the secrecy act to stop it, it raises more questions. It makes this high profile and we would be really interested to know what is going on,” a senior member of the ruling Al-Thani family said.

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The Bush administration avoided meeting Qatari officials for several months and Washington insisted Qatar should put pressure on al-Jazeera – launched with government funding nine years ago – to tone down its broadcasts out of Iraq.

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“It is time for the United States to tell the truth about this attack and to take responsibility for its actions, which appear to be gross violation of international humanitarian law,” said Aidan White, general secretary of the IFJ.

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