Dubai: Bahrain’s Information Minister Ali Al Romaihi has called for collective Arab action against television channels that threaten public order and security under the guise of freedom of speech.
“Based on the importance of the media as a weapon and its impact on Arab national security, we emphasise the urgent need to adopt serious steps against any media that is seditious, incites violence, extremism and terrorism, is not committed to accuracy, honesty, objectivity and credibility, and does not respect the dignity of Arab peoples and countries and their national sovereignty,” Al Romaihi said.
“Decisions have to be within the Arab and international media charters and agreements,” he said in Cairo where he chaired the meeting of the Arab information ministers.
Al Romaihi deplored the existence of satellite channels in the heart of the region over the past years with practices that had nothing to do with true media work.
“Their practices are not genuine media work and are far from the professional and ethical standards embraced for the sake of free and responsible expression of opinion. They are involved in suspicious conspiracies to support terrorism and sectarian strife, to promote bias towards extremist terror groups and to distort facts.”
Al Romaihi said that when he last year called for measures to help ensure such media are not allowed to incite violence, extremism and terrorism, there were accusations about limiting freedom of expression.
“We must, therefore, emphasise that blurring lines and confusing people through the use of ground-sounding terminology will not work. Arab national security requires us to stand firm as citizens first and then as journalists and officials. In the West — believed by some people to be the realm of ideals and model attitudes — there is no absolute or undisciplined freedom like in our Arab media. When a Western country bans a satellite channel in order to preserve its national security, there are no reactions,” Al Romaihi said.
“Let us quickly recall the new media culture established by Qatar’s Al Jazeera channel and the like that did not abide by the principles and ethics of media work. God orders us in His Book to argue, using the best arguments. Yet, Al Jazeera opted to consolidate harassment and attacks on all, except on Qataris. Arab viewers were forced to see new sights and hear new terms as the channel promoted some people for specific purposes and objectives, referring to them as human rights activists and political activists. The simple Arab viewer became confused and they were not able to understand what was going on around them.”
Al Romaihi said attacking the Quran could never be equated with freedom of speech or opinion.
“We cannot talk about freedom of expression when a television channel becomes a platform to promote terrorist groups and to portray them as militant movements seeking freedom and democracy, and to portray terrorist acts as peaceful protests and demands. Such a channel has thus become the media arm of terrorist groups.
Whenever the intelligence services of the world announce they are looking for a terrorist, we see that very wanted individual giving an exclusive interview or statement to the channel and in high definition.”
Al Romaihi said more than 900 negative reports and articles were broadcast on the channel about Bahrain in a systematic manner in a matter of months.
“The articles were an incitement to violence and hatred even though Bahrain has never in its history attacked or abused anyone. Bahrain, the pioneer in education, learning, culture and openness can be attacked or ignored only if there is a negative agenda motivating the attacker. We cannot talk about freedom of speech when a channel produces a film, translates it into five languages and markets it among rights organisations only with the aim of harming the country which was able, thanks to God and then to the wisdom and patience of its leaders, to overcome the challenges that many failed to face.”
The minister added that attacks by Al Jazeera on the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Arab armies and other Arab countries, and particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, were not freedom of speech.
“They are relentless onslaughts to make people lose their trust in their country and their confidence in its capabilities, security, economy and identity,” he said.