Banned in Iraq

The Iraqi Governing Council has banned the Al-Arabiya satellite channel because "it broadcast an invitation to murder, an incitement to murder by the voice of Saddam Hussein." (Hat tip to LGF)

The Iraqi Governing Council has a history of banning television channels. Back in September the Council banned Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya from broadcasting for 2 weeks.

Iraq's interim Governing Council said it was banning the Al-Arabiya satellite channel from working in Iraq for incitement to murder as a Sunni Muslim leader called for a week-long ceasefire to celebrate the feast marking the end of Ramadan, during which violence had surged.

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"We have decided to ban Al-Arabiya in Iraq for a certain period of time because it broadcast an invitation to murder, an incitement to murder by the voice of Saddam Hussein," the council's current chairman Jalal Talabani said Monday.

He said council members would also pursue a separate suit against the Dubai-based Arabic-language station through the Iraqi courts, the first here against a news organization since Saddam's overthrow.

Al-Arabiya announced shortly afterwards that its Baghdad bureau had been forcibly shut and its office contents seized.

Only after providing the assurance not to promote violence would the council "examine the question of reopening the bureau," the channel's Baghdad correspondent said.