Kuwait Shuts Down Al-Jazeera Office

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 04, 2002

Kuwait Shuts Down Al-Jazeera Office

Kuwait's Information Ministry on Sunday decided to close the bureau of the Qatari satellite television station Al-Jazeera, Kuwait's official KUNA news agency reported.

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Kuwait's Information Ministry on Sunday decided to close the bureau of the Qatari satellite television station Al-Jazeera, Kuwait's official KUNA news agency reported.

"Although Kuwait believes in the press, it has to take this measure because of the bias of this channel in covering some events that have recently taken place in Kuwait," an official source at the ministry said in a statement issued by KUNA.

It is the second time Kuwait shut down the Arab world's most popular satellite TV network. In 1999, Kuwait banned the station from reporting from the Gulf state after an Iraqi caller insulted Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed Al Sabah in a live broadcast.

The ban was lifted after a month and the station opened an office here in 2001.

In February this year, some Kuwaiti lawyers sued Al-Jazeera for allegedly defaming Kuwait in a live show.

Al-Jazeera has also run into problems with authorities in other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and it has been banned from operating in Bahrain and Jordan.

Al-Jazeera is a 24-hour station owned by Qatar's government, but it is known for a fairly independent editorial line. It reaches more than 35 million Arabs.

Founded in 1996, Al-Jazeera leaped to fame outside the Arab world after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States last year when US networks picked up its broadcasts of videotapes from Osama bin Laden and its footage of the bombardment of Afghanistan.

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