Iraq takes aim at the media

Iraq authorities have shut the offices of two television channels popular with Iraqis and ordered a satirical show off air, tightening control over the media as political tensions rise in Baghdad.

The crackdown, which began in March, appears to be prompted by concerns that the channels could enflame sectarian rivalries which over-stretched security forces would struggle to contain. But it also raises fears over freedom of expression.

The Communication and Media Commission (CMC), has shut down the Baghdad office of the pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, closed the local TV channel Al-Baghdadia, and ordered a halt to broadcasts of the satirical Albasheer Show.

It said Al Jazeera and the Albasheer Show, which mocks powerful Iraqi figures in the spirit of The Daily Show in the United States or France’s Le Petit Journal, have violated a code of professional conduct.

The CMC is a state authority tasked with implementing government policy.

It gave few details and declined requests for comment.

“They had some reservations about us using the term ‘militias’ when referring to the Hashid Shaabi,” said Waleed Ibrahim, Al Jazeera’s Iraq bureau chief, referring to a coalition of mostly paramilitary groups formed to fight Islamic State.

He said the CMC also objected to opinions expressed on the Qatar-based channel by guests in talk-shows broadcast from Doha.

“We tried to explain that these are the guests’ points of view and not necessarily ours,” he said.

Al-Baghdadia, a television channel owned by Iraqi entrepreneur Awn al-Khashlok and featuring programming popular with the minority, was shut down in March.

A CMC statement said the channel lacked proper authorisation.

These are some of the strongest restrictions on media in the nearly two-year tenure of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who came to office promising to mend the rift between Sunnis and the Shias. His office did not respond to requests for comment.

Abadi’s predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki, decreed a state of emergency restricting media coverage in 2014 after Islamic State seized a third of the country’s territory. Those restrictions were eased when Abadi succeeded him.

Maliki, a close ally of Iran, had revoked Al Jazeera’s license a year earlier, accusing the Doha-based network of adopting a sectarian tone after it covered demonstrations against him.

The licence was restored last year. Iraq’s governments have had volatile relations with nearby Qatar and other Gulf Arab countries since autocrat Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

The country’s Iranian-backed leaders have accused their neighbours of employing well-funded media outlets to undermine Iraq’s political process by highlighting the suffering of Sunnis and covering anti-Maliki protests in 2013. Media, in turn, face criticism of coverage accusing Gulf countries of supporting opposition in Iraq. The United Nations and the United States have expressed concern about Al Jazeera’s closure.

“These kinds of actions will not serve the fight against Daesh (Islamic State) as Iraq moves forward and begins to attempt to reconcile its diverse communities,” a State Department spokesman in Washington said this month.