Financial Times: Iraq sets up committee to impose restrictions on news reporting
Iyad Allawi, Iraq's prime minister, has established a media committee to impose restrictions on print and broadcast media, a government official announced yesterday. The step underlines an aggressive new attitude towards press freedoms, in spite of US efforts to nurture independent media.
Ibrahim Janabi, appointed to head the new Higher Media Commission, told the FT the restrictions - known as "red lines" - had yet to be finalised, but would include unwarranted criticism of the prime minister. He singled out last Friday's sermon by Moqtada al-Sadr, a firebrand Shia cleric, who mocked Mr Allawi as America's "tail".
Outlets that broadcast the sermon could be banned, he said.
Arabic News: Zeibari threatens to close al-Jazeera office in Baghdad
The Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zeibari criticized the Doha based al-Jazeera TV and described its coverage of events in Iraq as biased and deviated.
Zeibari added in an interview with al-Jazeera correspondent in Moscow, which he is currently visiting, that the Iraqi sides concerned discuss the closure of al-Jazeera office in Baghdad
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