Iraq shuts 2 TV stations after Saddam ruling
Source: Reuters
(Adds channels stop broadcasting) BAGHDAD, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Iraq's interior ministry ordered two television stations off the air on Sunday on the grounds they were inciting violence after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, a ministry spokesman said. One channel is controlled by a prominent Sunni Arab politician and the other is based in Saddam's Sunni home region. "Let them reject the verdict, they have the right, but don't talk about 'mujahideen' and 'resistance'," said ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf, accusing the stations of giving a platform to people who were making threats of violence. "They are hosting people who are talking about something that is completely distinct from politics, calling for violence and killing," Khalaf said, adding that security forces had been despatched to enforce the closure orders. Within hours, the two channels were showing a message saying they had been closed by order of the government. A journalist at Salahaddin said Iraqi security forces had come to the office and ordered them to stop broadcasting. The government has previously complained about channels it says are fomenting sectarian conflict. It bans pan-Arab news station Al Jazeera and forced its main rival, Al-Arabiya, to shut its Baghdad bureau for a month in September. Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity on Sunday and sentenced to hang for the killing of 148 Shi'ite villagers after a failed assassination bid on him in 1982. Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, which enjoyed political power and patronage under Saddam, has lost power since his overthrow by U.S. troops, with Shi'ite Muslims and ethnic Kurds dominating the U.S.-backed political processs. Resentment has fuelled a Sunni Arab insurgency, referred to by many Sunnis as the "resistance" and its fighters as holy warriors or "mujahideen".
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