The Revolution will be Twittered... this time in Iran
Courtney C. Radsch (DUBAI): Iranian activists successfully got Twitter to suspend a planned interruption of service today because it has become an indispensable communication tool. Twitter and the other new media applications of the day -- Facebook, Flikr, YouTube and all -- have once again become indispensable tools in the repertoires of contention of activists in a less-than-democratic country.
So when Twitter announced Monday it would temporarily suspend the service for an hour the next day it immediately spurred a wave of requests not to take away what has become a key communication and organizational tool for post-election activism. Iran has taken press credentials from foreign media and kicked them out of the country and banned their broadcasts. It shut Al Arabiya's Tehran bureau and imprisoned journalists. But it ca't stop Twitter, which works via Internet and mobile phones and is too dispersed and instantaneous and pervasive to block. So real information and images are getting out.
“@twitter Twitter is currently our ONLY way to communicate overnight news in Iran, PLEASE do not take it down,” wrote Moussavi1388, a feed with nearly 11,000 followers that serves as a virtual newsroom, providing information about protests and press conferences. People began posting tweets about the need to prevent the planned outage and shortly after 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday morning in Iran, the company announced it would suspend the planned upgrade in acknowledgment of its role in facilitating communication in and out of Iran.
Messages with #IranElection, a tag that enables users to search for all tweets on that subject, was the most popular tag on Twitter Tuesday, with more than 70 new posts a minute coming in Tuesday night. Tehran was the second most popular.
Mosavi’s Facebook page, which lists his current position as “president” of Iran, has more than 54,000 members posting pictures and videos that are helping to document the largest protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution as well as government violence that has left at least eight activists dead.
But blogs and Twitter feeds can also be seen by governmental authorities, prompting a campaign Tuesday evening to encourage people around the world to change their profiles to help protect activists in Iran.
“Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30” read the tweets sent by hundreds of users in an effort to make it more difficult for the government to track down those blogging inside Iran.
This is certainly not the first time Twitter has helped activists organize, as I've written many posts about its use in Egypt in particular (it has also been used in Moldova, Lebanon, China, etc). But of course, my detailed research is on Egypt, so if you want to read more about how activists in the Middle East use Twitter click here!
Hackers crash official Iran news sites: Exclusive
My team and I discovered this morning that several official Iranian news sites were down after a Facebook note went out telling supporters to download a file that would cause denial of service and crash the sites. From the article I just wrote and posted on Al Arabiya about the hacking, which followed just a day after Iran officials closed Al Arabiya's Tehran bureau for a week.
"Iranians sympathetic to reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who lost his election bid against the incumbent president, fought back against a government crackdown on media by hacking official news websites Sunday.
Activists dissatisfied with what they say were fraudulent elections that saw President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad elected to a second term with a landslide 63 percent of the vote, organized a denial of service campaign through Facebook that caused the websites of several official news agencies to crash.
The official IRNA and FARS news agencies websites could not be displayed for several hours in the morning, Press TV’s site delivered a server busy message while the official parliament site, Majlis.ir, gave an unending still working message.
The websites of IRIB, the official broadcaster, Sepah News, the Revolutionary Guards newspaper and Kehan, the conservative government mouthpiece, were also unavailable.
A note posted on Facebook urged supporters dissatisfied with the vote results to download a file called “giveourvoteback” that would send requests to the various official websites effectively creating a denial of service because of too many server requests and crashing the sites.
Facebook, used by supporters of rival reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi to rally support, was blocked in the weeks leading up to the election and in the wake of post-election demonstrations. 
But Iranians at home, using proxies, and abroad fought back by causing the denial of service of several official government news sites. The campaign came amid the third day of violent protests and a continued government crackdown on the media, especially foreign press." (for the rest of the article click here)
So... yesterday Iran told Al Arabiya that we would not be able to broadcast from Tehran for the next week. Conveniently this would prevent coverage of the enormous protests that have wracked the capital and other cities for the past three days since the election results were announced. Reports are that they are the biggest in a decade if not since the Islamic Revolution in Iran...
Attacks to the Iranian corpus!
Today's news from Iran is worrisome or is it promising?! As protesters riot in the streets of Tehran to express their anger at the reelection of President Ahmedinijad, attacks on the bodies of Iranians are making headlines worldwide as videos circulate online. BBC, Al-Jazeera English and other international networks are showing the gory footage of protesters confronting law enforcement and the latter assaulting them with batons, pepper spray and tear gas. Throngs of youth are seen swarming the streets, clashing, and dispersing. The violation of the human corpus on the Iranian streets has become central to the way these elections will be perceived and historicized. Al-Jazeera English, in an attempt to stockpile their Iran coverage, decided to run a documentary entitled 
"Rough Cut" by Firouzeh Khosrovani on the show Witness tackling the manipulation, exploitation and silencing of the female body in Iran through the lens of mannequins. Video narration about patriarchy and the suppression of women's corporeal expression are coupled with images of mannequin breast being sawed off. It will be difficult on this Friday, June 14th, for us to overlook the contiguity between these two narratives of corporeal dismemberment on the streets and behind the shop windows. Hundreds have been arrested and beaten after they attacked stores and burned police motorcycles. Some of Mousavi's people have been detained. Mobile phones have been frozen, sms messages disabled, and bodies continue to descend onto the streets even against the advice of their leader Mousavi who has urged calm. At 5pm local time, Ahmedinijad is scheduled to rally his supporters in Tehran and clashes are expected to occur as the contesting crowds collide. It appears the sentiment in the streets is now apart from the leaders themselves as herd mentality has translated into immense public mobilization. 
While the body naturalis and body politic are strangled, the virtual body is also restrained as Iranian authorities blocked YouTube.com, Facebook and the websites of several newspapers. Some twitter reports and blogs have described raids on the student dorms and the arrests of bloggers. At this time, the Iranian corpus is in a more precarious position that in anytime over the last 20 years. And as authorities attempt to create a blockade on media representation of this, images, videos and experiences are trickling out and reverberating worldwide.
Ahmedinijad Landslide, SMS Frozen, Streets Charged
Saturday morning, Iranians woke up to a perplexing situation. Election results announced by national television networks show a decisive blow to the Green contender Mousavi with a landslide in favor of the notorious incumbent Ahmedinijad. This is anything but what was expected and speculated by Western media. The announced 67% victory for the conservative leader left global observers puzzled and his contestants defiant. Some analysts in the West have argued that Iran will likely exhibit what has been referred to as "The Obama Effect" indicating the US president's charm in the region and ability to sway elections. Mousavi has stated clearly that he intends to challenge the results, with his supporters pouring into the streets to express their dismay and vowed to launch "Operation Sovereignty" with confrontational slogans such as "If there was fraud, there will be riots." Fear of a backlash by Mousavi supporters may have prompted Iranian authorities to shutdown all text (sms) message services in the country for a whole day. Some bloggers and facebookers have accused the authorities of trying to fragment and disconnect Mousavi supporters by crippling their ability to connect with one another and mobilize. Anytime now, the election committee is supposed to announce the final results with 95% of ridings reporting. The ramifications of this announcement are anyone's guess, but could be significant if election fraud is seen as a probable.
Midnight Media Mayhem on Iran Elections!!
At this hour, Iran is ablaze with speculation about the presidential elections which produced a massive turnout from voters. Unlike the measely turnout in European parliamentary vote earlier this week, and more akin to the Lebanese parliamentary elections, ballot box traffic is booming in the Middle East. Iran is a clear example where the turnout was large enough to warrant a 4-hour extension of voting which in the end shattered the 80% record that came out to vote Khatami to office more than a decade ago!! In the period between the closing of ballot boxes and the official announcement of election results, Iranian and global media have been thrown into a whirlwind.
Reformist contender Mousavi has declared himself "definite" victor just hours after closing of ballots and relied on exit polls of 65% supporting his election. Western news agencies picked up that news and ran with it; Reuters and AP delivered stories about Mousavi's announcement caught on like wildfire in the Saturday morning press worldwide. Just minutes ago, the Interior Ministry has decided to hold an early press conference to announce results (an uncustomary occurrence given that only 20% of the votes have been counted and mostly from rural regions) where they announced that incumbent Ahmedinijad secured 69% of tallied votes.
It is unclear why both Mousavi and the Interior Ministry (an arm of the government which could raise questions about its impartiality) both took a leap to ignite frenzy about how the results given that none of the numbers so far are conclusive. Some western reporters and Mousavi supporters have started suggesting that the press conference may serve a pro-Ahmedinijad conspiracy. Rather it seems this is part of the information battle which will characterize the next few days, implying the post-election dust will not settle fast. The politically-charged atmosphere in Iran today has both camps mobilized and perhaps street-bound if the election results don't go their way. For the next few hours, until the official figures are out, Iran and much of the international community will be holding their breaths to see what will come out of this.
This is an election that has produced a phenomenal public outpouring and populism by the challenger Mousavi who has reached out to liberal-minded educated professional urbanites, youth, and women (which are thought to be the main group in the swelling of election turnout). There are questions of class, urban/rural, gender, ideology, and age that factor into this election as the faultlines became clear. Charges of corruption, nepotism, conspiracy, ignorance, and radicalism were lobbed by both candidates at each other in their televised debates. Diasporic Iranians also might factor into the election as hundreds of thousands cast their votes from around the world, with 40 stations in the US alone!!
For now, the craze continues as Iranians will spend latenight hours infront of their television sets and computers and text messages flurry back and forth between them. The infamously active Iranian blogosphere is ablaze and Iranian Facebook users are posting messages, status updates, and sharing minute-by-minute content with one another about the elections.
View on the Ground in Lebanon: Parliamentary elections 2009
Mechan and Byblos, LEBANON (Courtney C. Radsch) The cars struggled to pass each other in the long line of cars maneuvering on the narrow mountain road into the village of Mechan to the school that served as its polling station.
Jeeps filled with veiled women and bearded men pulled up to unload their passengers, ferried by bus from their homes in Syria to vote for Hezbollah in an historic election that drew an estimated 10 percent of voters from abroad to vote in the parliamentary elections.
A sheikh in white headdress was the first to arrive, and every few minutes another carload arrived to drop off some 200 voters who had made the five-hour trek to dip their fingers in purple ink and cast their ballots.
Mechan gets to elect three representatives: one Christian and two Shias. Lebanon’s democratic system requires a rigid adherence to parliamentary representation based on sectarian allocations to each of the country’s 18 religious factions. Muslims get 64 seats and Christians the other half of the 128 seats in parliament.
“We came to have our voices heard,” Mohamed Chamas told Al Arabiya, explaining why he had travelled from Syria to cast his vote in his hometown.
Lebanese must vote for one of the 580 candiates in one of 26 districts, which is determined by the hometown of their father or husband’s family as recorded on their identity cards, regardless of where they live. 580 candidates were running
Several youth in dressed in the bright red shirts of government supports stood just above the village school where people lined up for an hour to cast their vote while others dressed in yellow vest emblazoned with the green machine gun logo of Hezbollah stood watch across the street.
A cacophony of car horns attested to the passion of a society split between a Western-backed government loyal to former Prime Mineter Rafik al-Hariri’s Future movement and that of the Syrian and Iranian-backed opposition loyal to Christian General Michel Aoun and the Shiite party Hezbollah.
Cars draped in the red, white and green of the March 14 movement – which included Saad Hariri’s Future movement and Samer Geagea’s Lebanese Forces and Amin Gameyel’s Phalangists -- and tooted a distinctive honk while those draped in the orange of Aoun or the yellow and green of Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbollah totted another theme.
The honks echoed through the empty streets, where shuttered stores and restaurants attested to the heightened tensions of a body politic concerned about clashes between rivals.
The army was out in full force as tanks, strategically positioned at polling stations and throughout the cities, and soldiers in fatigues bearing rifles and machine funs kept a wary eye on residents they hoped would be dissuaded from causing any trouble.
Nearly 3.5 million people were expected to vote Sunday, with 10 percent of them returning from abroad to fulfill their civic duty. With an estimated population of about five million, their impact could be critical.
The authorities have suggested that some 16 million Lebanses citizens abroad will be able to vote through their embassies in the next election, but for the 2009 election they would have to travel back to a homeland that has been struggling to recover from a 20-year civil war that ended in 1991 and a 2006 Israeli war that decimated much of its recovery efforts.
European Union election observers were in Lebanon to monitor and assess the integrity of the elections, but even before election day their were reports of cheating and fraud.
One observer stationed in Byblos, the port city 35 km ( miles) north of Beirut, told Al Arabiya that fake identity cards that were exact duplicates of the real ones required to vote were found in Beirut and elsewhere.
In the days leading up to election day the various parties distributed ballots to the faithful listing the slate of candidates they supported. In Batroun, a beachside city in the north of Lebanon home to a mix of Shia and Christian residents, ballots with disappearing ink were found, adding to the controversy over tactics used by the government-aligned forces to swing the election in their favor.
A week ago a new March 14 candidate named Gibran Bassil entered the race. But there was already a Gibran Bassil running with the March 8 opposition. The pro-government alliance hoped the confusion created by having two candidates with the same name would work in their favor, forcing the more well-know opposition candidate to be forced to use a third name as an identifier and thus invalidating ballots that did not distinguish the two.
But the day before the election the authorities, looking to French law for guidance, ruled that the lesser-known candidate would be the only one required to use a third name – his father’s—and thus backfiring.
As the polls closed at 7 p.m., Michel Aoun’s supporters in were erecting a stage in the historic downtown area in preparation for what they hoped would be a victory celebration.
In the 2005 elections the March 14th alliance gained 71 seats while the opposition won 57.
Play-by-play of Obama Speech to Muslim World
Torn between high hopes and low expectations, the Muslim and Arab worlds anticipate Obama's landmark speech "A New Beginning" from Cairo Egypt. Will he help alleviate the anger and frustration among youth in the region? Will he dispel the view of American foreign policy as openly anti-Islamic? Will he convince viewers of a new American brokerage in the Palestinian-Israeli impasse? How will he address the growing frustration with the slowing progress on the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center and US withdrawal from Iraq? Ta3beer followed the historic speech live from Cairo and offered a simultaneous play-by-play analysis, and the resonance of Obama's words in the region. This is likely the most watched public speech in history.
-10 mins: The auditorium at Cairo University has never looked this good. All guests and audiences are seated in anticipation. Students' exams have been postponed by several days, so they will listen to Obama rather than their invigilators and proctors. Obama has given speeches at some of the most extravagant sites from the Brandenburg Gate to the steps of the US Capitol building, but this stage is unique in that it resembles an opera/orchestral hall. The audience seems comprised of more officials/dignitaries/parliamentarians/faculty moreso than youth although the speech is tabbed as an appeal to youth in the Muslim world.
0:01: Obama arrives to rousing applause and utters his first Arabic word "Shukran."
0:03: Offers a few words of diplomatic gesturing to the Arab world, while mispronouncing Al-Azhar, he gets Al Salamu3aleikum better than most. He opens with an acknowledgement of ancient cooperation. States colonialism as a source of impediments in the region. Now that is going farther than most. Talks about the cold war and its role. But jumps immediately into the post-9/11 climate. The rhetoric seems reconciliatory at this point. Very reminiscent of Sadat's speech at the Knesset. "I came to Cairo to seek a new beginning. America and Islam are not exclusive...the overlap...share tolerance and dignity of all human beings." A first time nod to the common values of islam and the United States.
0:05: Historicizes the role of Islamic civilization from medicine to art etc etc....while Samuel Huntington must be rolling in his grave, some of the words sound a bit fetishizing of Islam and its adherents. He's really done some research to uncover the role of Muslims in America. Although they don't get any recognition domestically and usually operate invisibly. Not particularly convincing.
Mentions the Thomas Jefferson Quran.....which was the topic of a great presentation at last year's Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA) conference plenary session in Washington, DC. Pledged to fight negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. This surely should start with the conviction of Daniel Pipes of hate speech!!!
Casts America as a post-colonial project to congeal with most of the Muslim world. This is clever rhetoric.
0:08: Committed a boo-boo by calling the Hijab, the Hajib!!! hehhee.....there are muted claps and applause when he states Muslims should acknowledge misrepresentation of America. Appeals to the collective conscience with common humanity-type mambo-jambo. Using terms like subjugation only subjugates him to his own rhetoric. How much of this speech is a facade or oratory eloquence meant to massage the audience's cerebrum.
0:11: He uses emotional appeal to rescusitate 9/11's spirit and pose a decisive response to that event. States that security is the only reason why American troops are there. Mentions the "coalition of the willing" in Afghanistan....sounds familiar. Two quotes from the Koran so far. Audience claps irrespective of quote. Stranded "I love you" in the audience. Casts moderate Islam aside from the "extremism" of a minority. Counterpoint to war in the region $1.5 billion to build infrastructure in Pakistan and $2 billion to Afghanistan....the price of destruction. Distinguishes wars of choice and no-choice. Talks about Iraq's sovereignty......but no apology for the loss of life caused by Bush administrations egregious error.........
0:15: 9/11 returns but this time to acknowledge the incorrect direction. Asserts the decision to close Guantanamo to audience applause. America pledges to commit to rule of law. I am told the translators on some arabic networks are horrendous and inaccurate.
0:20: The Israel ghost rises....the inseparable bond between Israel and the United states gets no applause at all...silence falls upon the auditorium. Jewish homeland is cast as a response to Holocaust. hmmmmmm Sounds like an unshakable Zionist foundation. When talking about the concentration camps at Buchenwald, he mispronounces the Third Reich (a relief that Arabic isn't his only linguisitic weekness. Discusses the Palestinian dislocation and dispossession. But tries to force another perspective by offering a huge plea for the two-state solution and statement of unequivocal commitment to it. No discussion of democratic states.
0:27: Resistance through violence is not acceptable....condemns violence as a response by Palestinians. Talks about qassam missiles landing on Sderot. Only violence sanctioned by the US is acceptable. Audience unimpressed. Israel's right to exist doesnt win audience satisfaction, but the condemnation of settlements does.
0:30: Arabs are called on to act in support of Palestinians....I presume he forgot the demonstrations for Gaza across the region. He pledges a future of transparency in the negotiations. Offers an image of Jerusalem that is united in its faithful cosmopolitanism and plugs the story of Isra'a.
0:35: A president acknowledges the illegal actions in trying to destabilize Iran historically. Embracing rhetoric ....."some countries have weapons and others do not." Non-proliferation over selective proliferation. But the audience is probably thinking why not state the obvious.....what about Israel's arsenal.
0:40: Promotion of democracy should not be imposition of one nation over another. Expresses a nuanced view of America's transgressions ....seemingly humbling view of US, far more modest than the pax americana realism of previous administrations. Freedom from a country that steals from the people......I suppose there are enough officials in the audience for people NOT to applaud this statement. hehhe Must be surreal to talk about democratization in this environment. Maintain power through consent.....appeal to respecting minorities. This has a special flavor to the Coptic and religious minorities in Egypt. Screams of "I love you"
0:43: His 5th point is focused on religious tolerance, and states clearly the rights of Maronites and Copts. Doesn't ring as Orientalist as his predecessor's appeals to so-called religious rights for minorities. Critiques liberal ideals that he argues might be infringing on rights of women to act freely. Nod to saudi king Abdullah and Tayip Erdogan's interfaith dialogue initiatives.
0:48: Concentrates on the role of women in Muslim societies and the extent to which they have contributed to Islamic nations. Preaching to the choir in this crowd but is an open critique of the rise of gender disparities as a product of religious extremism.
0:50: Fear of modernity as a product of rise of conservatism. Has anyone told Obama that this is an old argument?? Most Muslims and Arabs have embraced modernity everywhere. Education and innovation are the currency of the next century. Acknowledging American equivalents. A dramatic turn in policy from the Bush administration, by encouraging Muslims to study in the United States and vice versa. So I suppose the visa limitations and obstacles should end. Centers of excellence.....how many ideas can one offer in a single speech?? Where is the money coming from? More bailout money? US taxpayer funds to support development in the Muslim world?
1:04: Israelis and Palestinians secure in states of their own. No appeal to "cohabitation" and "coexistence" but rather adjacency....what becomes of the faultlines, the 1948 Arabs etc??
1:07: More colourful language about intercultural contact and communication. Appeal to looking inward for solutions. Rule in all religions pertaining to mutual and egalitarian treatment. A true preacher..... Just in time for the dismissal and exile of Amr Khaled from Egypt, Obama gives a speech worthy of the best evangelist.
1:10: In closing, Obama cites the Koran, Talmud and Bible in that order to confirm the expediency and primacy of peace. A little fluster at the end...."May god.....uhmmm...peace be upon you!!" And standing ovation from the audience!!
Overall a very evocative speech that really shakes up tthe rules of engagment inherited from the previous administration. A diplomatic speech moreso than a war speech. While expressing viewpoints clothed in faith-talk, he was the voice of a leader of a "benevolent empire," as described by Marwan Bishara on Al-Jazeera. Very much his "I have a dream" speech. Some of his speaking points appear too closely aligned to the Israeli narrative and presents them in a manner that makes Zionist claims as not only palatable, but clearly legitimate. Hamas spokesperson says the speech reminded him of MLK Jr. but contests that absence of the right of return from the speech and other reservations. One might expect some discomfort from the Israeli government who will be cringing at the time dedicated to Palestinian suffering and the priority for statehood. While Americans are still waking up, one should anticipate a stormy reaction from conservative commentators who will be aggravated by Obama's frequent apologies on behalf of his country's misadventures in the region. Azmi Bishara argued on Al-Jazeera Arabic that the colorful language and sweet talk Obama offered is a standard practice when it comes to discussing Palestinian ambitions. Also the equivalency between the Jewish genocide in Europe with the dispossession of Palestinians from their homeland is deeply problematic. All in all, the speech seemed like an exercise in binaries.....Palestinian/Israeli, moderate/extremist, American/Muslim, peaceful resistance/violent resistance etc...and gravitates back and forth between asserting the lines and blurring them. For a full transcript of the speech, click here.
Egypt Television Genuflect to Obama
The hype for Obama's visit to Egypt has reached a crescendo with his arrival in Cairo. The White House has pegged his speech at cairo university as the most important direct address to the muslim world by a sitting US president. With that the war of media and communication was in full swing as both #1 and #2 at Al-Qaeda have launched scathing attacks on Obama in two messages released within a 36 hour period online. But the most interesting engagment comes from the Arab media themselves. The popular Egyptian late night television program Al-Qahira Al-Youm (Cairo Today) hosted by the flambouyant and sharp-tongued Amr Adeeb, hosted a show dedicated to the visit. Adeeb spent the first 10 mins of the program scolding the Egyptian citizenry for complaining about the unofficial security curfews imposed in the city during Obama's visit and other inconveniences caused by his movement through the 18-million-person metropolis. Using rather condescending terms, he advised Cairenes to stay home, munch on their salad and babaghanouj (eggplant dip) and watch the Obama spectacle on TV. His support for the security apparatus in Egypt exuded disdain for any expression of public opinion, as he ridiculed demonstrators for/against Obama and impolitely ordered them to avoid the streets, complacently endorsing the arrest of activists. This is the level that media control has reached on Egyptian airwaves. The state no longer has to exert its influence by fear-mongering in the streets nor through the censors of the Ministry of Information or the State Information Service. Instead, it is the "independent" anchors of popular shows that are doing their propagandizing for them, by encouraging collective apathy and disconnection. This is the next generation in the trend towards subduing any form of democratic expression in Egypt. Unfortunately given the popularity of the term "Arab Street" in the western press (there's an excellent article on use of this euphemism in the Middle East Journal), it appears the connotation is predominantly negative rather than a site of collective organizing and public outpouring. So it is only ironic that the Arab streets are emptied for the visits of the world's chief advocate for democratization. Twenty-first century political engagement in the Arab world is now confined to the consumption of media messages rather than actual participation.
Why the Der Spiegal Hezbollah Article was Legitimate News
By Courtney C. Radsch -- Dubai -- There has been quite an uproar in the Arabic, and particularly Lebanese, media over the Der Spiegal story linking Hezbollah to the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Al Arabiya has come under particularly fierce attack from pro-Hezbollah media, especially of course Al Manar, as well as NBN and other sympathetic media. But they seem to miss the point -- they attack Al Arabiya for reporting on the Der Spiegel article without assessing its inherent news value and recognizing that this was a story across the world and not part of some pro-Hariri or pro-March 14 agenda. All major news organizations across the world covered the story, from news agencies like AP to Al Jazeera and CNN. And of course Al Arabiya (and here's the arabic one).
The Der Spiegel article was published less than three weeks ahead of the June 7 parliamentary elections pitting the Western-backed Sunni-led March 14 coalition against the Syria and Iran-backed Shia-Christian alliance known as March 8 led by Hezbollah. And we were clear to point this timing out as were so many others.
The article relied on unnamed and unidentified "sources" in the United Nations Special Tribunal that reportedly told the German magazine that the tribunal has evidence linking special forces in the Hezbollah to the bombing that killed Hariri and 19 others. It cites information obtained from unspecified source "and verified by examining internal documents" and claims that the special prosecutor is afraid of Hezbollah and therefore has not made the information public. And Al Arabiya noted this. But just because there are unamed sources doesn't make an article unquoteable. It is certianly not ideal and should be clearly stated. But when I think to my time at the New York Times and the types of stories that got published without naming sources - think Abu Ghraib, illegal wiretapping etc -- it can sometimes be necessary. And the stories the NYT broke on these subjects as well as recent ones about US strikes in Pakistan were considered newsworthy as well and were covered by all professional media.
Of course there are also stories such as those in the lead-up to the Iraq war that used unamed sources and were wrong. That is why the journalist has a responsibility to make clear that the story is from an unamed source and thus must be treated with a certain amount of skepticism. But when respected news organization write reports they become legitimate story sources for other journalists. It doesn't mean there is a political agenda behind it. And as the head of Al Arabiya told us today, we must cover the news regardless of the politics - if the report was that Saad Hariri assassinated his own father this too would be news and we would have reported it. And the Arabic chanel and Arabic & English sites have done several follow up stories on Hassan Nasrallah's denial, accusations that Israel was behind the story, accusations the story was published to create clashes between Sunnis and Shias, and of course the timing of the Der Spiegel article.
Countdown to Al-Jazeera's Canada Bid!!
On June 8th, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the regulatory board of all broadcasting in Canada, will close the public comment window for Al-Jazeera's bid to join the airwaves. In what has become a highly contentious issue, Al-Jazeera Arabic and English stations have found themselves embattled in the traditionally receptive Canadian political terrain. A similar bid by the Arabic station in the summer of 2004 resulted in a heated and highly public tit-for-tat between advocates and critics, the prior being Arab and Muslim associations and the latter pro-Israeli, Zionist and conservative groups. The outcome was bittersweet for the news station when the CRTC, in an attempt to strike a compromise, slapped cable providers willing to carry Al-Jazeera with the unrealistic, laborious and costly requirement of monitoring and excising out all content that they deem "inciteful" or "abusive." So at the end, CRTC's so-called approval of Al-Jazeera Arabic turned out to be a lemon for the network's Canadian fans as the airtime never came.
Today, it's Al-Jazeera's English (AJE) that is facing a similar review, as the CRTC solicits public opinion on the station's bid over the next three and a half weeks. Yet unlike its predecessor and partner, AJE is aided with a far broader arsenal of weapons against critics. AJE is an English-language global broadcaster (hence it is comprehensible to Canadian audiences and not subject to slipshod/selective/politicized translation à la MEMRI) operating out of 4 international centers and tens of bureaus, it employs the crème de la crème of international journalism (of whom many are Canadians including former CBC head Tony Burman and host Avi Lewis), its available in 100 countries, and the Doha office is pouring some serious dough into this bid. Recently, the station launched a site to advocate and support localized North American activism in support of AJE which was made available as a free online stream from Livestation and whose programs were made available on a Youtube.com channel. Since its blackout in North America (all but two cable companies--Buckeye in Toledo and Burlington in Vermont), the station has seen its American and Canadian online viewership soar especially during the Dec/Jan Israeli war on Gaza. While viewers seem to be its prime advocates, AJE's politically-connected critics are aplenty including Daniel Pipes.
There is no way of predicting how this application will pan out, but it may come down to the two camps' ability to recruit their "masses." That is if those masses even exist! Several petitions opposing the approval of Al-Jazeera in Canada have been initiated at petitionsonline with total signatures still under 100. Conversely, the facebook group "I want Al-Jazeera English in Canada" has a mere 142 members. Doesn't seem like the pro/con camps are going populist. Perhaps it's a result of CRTC's ostensibly public invitation has been flying under the radar, barely appearing in the major press, and instead getting ink as small capsules in the Metro newspapers.
When AJE head Burman made the case for his station over the past few months, the bid got some press, e.g. the Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, Maclean's. However, the chatter has subsided just ahead of the public comment phase of the application which could hurt the station's chances significantly. To add to the drama and fodder controversy, the ENTIRE CRTC online portal (which houses the instructions for submission of comments about Al-Jazeera's bid) has been down all day today. Was it a hacking job or routine maintenance? How could the CRTC website be down for an entire day without even a peep in the Canadian media? Could it affect public responses? If so, will the deadline be extended to compensate for lost time? Overall, this should nudge public attention in the coming days. As the clock ticks on AJE's bid to break into the prized North American market, expect the debate to reach a crescendo as Judgement Day, June 8, nears.
