Al-Jazeera reporter arrested for alleged Al-Qaida ties

Well that doesn't surprise me.

That's the same tv channel that's influencing hearts and minds in the Middle East. No wonder we have so many willing extremeists ready to blow themselves up in the name of jihad.

 

Tayseer Alouni was arrested and re-arrested ten times before by Spanish authorities, and every single pro-journalistic freedom group has denounced the arrest as 'politically motivated'.

Anyways, if he is guilty, then Spain should bring up the charges, because apparently if they had ANY evidence whatsoever they would have TRIED him by now. The mere fact that they keep releasing him and then arresting him reaks of a weak case that they are trying hard to push through, but might be having trouble doing so.

BTW, Alouni was nothing more than a field reporter, he's not an anchor or anything like that.

And bigtexxx, don't be an idiot an enmbarass yourself if you have no idea what the f*k Al-Jazeera broadcasts/says from first-hand experience, not what O'Reilly and others say. So learn Arabic and then watch it for yourself. Would you rather have state-controlled news all across the region? Al-Jazeera inspired a media movement in the ME and is banned in many ME countries because they are pro-democracy and anti-dictatorship, and they regularly bash and embarass regimes in that region.

I will tell you this, and this is entirely my opinion: they are more 'free' and have more journalistic integrity than any major American network. Ask any 'Arab' (doesn't even have to be a Muslim, just an Arab) and he will tell you how important Al-JAzeera has been for freedom of the press in the Arab world - it was nothing short of revolutionary, and for good or bad, and whether or not you dislike their coverage, their overall impact as far as spreading a culture of respectful debate and giving a forum for citizens all across the region to call in and express their political opinions is nothing short of amazing.

So again, since you are not from the region, you don't know the language, and have no idea what you're talking about, refrain from making yourself look idiotic -- although that might be too late.

 

LOL - guess who quickly jumps to defend the Al-Jazeera suspect...tigermission! You're truly blinded by your biases.

And I don't need to learn to speak Arabic. I have access to their English website which I read frequently, and it is amazingly biased. Fox News presents both sides of the political coin, Al Jazeera is truly hateful towards the Bush administration.

 

Hmmm, a lonely Alan Colmes vs an army of right-wing nuts ...

 

Al-Jazeera reporter arrested for alleged Al-Qaida ties
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I must say that this is not shocking news in the least.

 

so is a great percentage of american citizens. whats your point.

 

Pass the crackpipe, Luther. You're high as a kite.

Ever wonder why Faux News doesn't use "fair and balanced" anymore?

And, if you wanted to actually learn about Al Jazeera, you would watch this movie.

But then again, you wouldn't go see this movie, because Lee Greenwood doesn't sing the theme song.

 

What sides of the political coin might those be? The extremely conservative and the moderately conservative? The Christian Right and the plain ol' right? The only person on their entrie channel who even comes close to being a centrist is Alan Colmes. Funny that their token "liberal" looks like the crypt keeper and couldn't win an argument with one of his six year old nephews.

P.S. - Sean Hannity is a racist douche bag.

 

bigtexx,

Didn't claim Al-Jazeera was 'fair', I said they were 'freer', which from my own experience is true.

Al-Jazeera, unlike Faux News and your beloved Limbaugh, does NOT claim to be 'fair and balanced', but Faux News does. If you watched 'Control Room' you would've seen that Al-Jazeera clearly states it's covering the news from an 'Arab point of view', which makes sense since they do cater to that market, much like Faux News flies the American flag in their background and editorializes the news in a way to cater to a conservative audience. Is this part hard for you to understand?

Believe it or not, Al-Jazeera is much more fair to the Americans than the European press itself, don't believe me? Your prophet O'Reilly himself said so on his show last week when he reviewed the Katrina coverage by the Europeans to the Middle Eastern press.

The bottom line is this: would you rather have a news organization like Al-Jazeera that at least is a free press, which does report inconvenient truths about American actions every now and then, or would you rather have them go out of business and have a region with nothing resembling a free press? In other words: are you pro-democracy in the ME as Bush claims to be, or are you more interested in having a cooperative press with the currenet administration -- much like most of the mainstream media here is?

Your blind hatred for everything from that region is just sad, apparently Jesus' message of love was lost on you, which is something a self-proclaimed Christian should worry about if I am not mistaken. In fact, Christianity is a ME religion, so may be you should rethink that

 

Not surprised, rather an expected verdict in light of the political climate in Spain. Anyways, as I said, if he were truly guilty, then he deserves what he got. If he was not guilty and was instead caught up 'doing his job' in gaining an interview with a 'terrorist' mastermind, then that's chilling news for all journalists around the world (which explains why all journalistic freedom-type organizations around the world are protesting in support of him), because this means that the Russian government can rightfully demand that the US try an ABC employee on terrorism charges for interviewing a notorious Chechen terrorist for Nightline, which by the way was vehementally protested by the Russian government.

This could have a wide-reaching effect on the way journalists do their job. It would be interesting to see if there are more similar cases in the future.

 

Personally, I would hope that not one terrorist gets to have their message beamed out to a worldwide audience. The next time someone is given the opportunity to interview OBL they should contact the CIA and earn themselves a nice wad of cash.

 

Last time I checked Al-Jazeera was an independent run news station, sort of like Fox News or CNN. Believe it or not, most ppl in the Middle East think the station is a more moderate of sorts.