Egyptian slams Arabsat’s move to cut off al-Alam

Egypt’s largest opposition movement has slammed the removal of Iran’s Arabic-language news channel al-Alam from the satellite operators NileSat and Badr.

“The banning is a sign of a trend prevailing in Arab countries, which refuses to accept the communication revolution or the global village,” Essam El-Erian, a leading figure in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said on Wednesday.

Erian, who heads the brotherhood’s political bureau, said that the channel was taken off air due to its success in “giving a voice to resistance groups in Palestine and Lebanon.”

The channel was taken off air last week by the operators for hosting ‘several opposition figures’ who had ‘mounted accusations and lies’ against leaders in the Persian Gulf region.

In a letter to Iran’s broadcasting authorities, Arabsat named a London-based opposition figure, Mohammad Al-Massari, as one of the figures hosted by Al Alam that had spoken “against the Saudi government and its leaders based on hatred of its leaders.”

“The anchors of the programs did not take any action to suppress such accusations,” it added.

Mohammad Al-Massari is an exiled Saudi physicist and political dissident who gained asylum in the United Kingdom in 1994.

Riyadh accuses Al-Massari of supporting a plot aimed at assassinating the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, a claim he denies.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday that NileSat and Badr had taken “a wrong decision,” indicating that the Islamic Republic may take legal action against the providers.

“Given the contract concluded between Al-Alam and the two satellite operators, the decision is … subject to legal proceedings,” Mottaki told a press conference in Tehran.

Al Alam has gained significant prominence for its coverage of Israel’s 2008 aggression against the people of Gaza and the on-going war in Yemen.

Egypt, Israel’s main ally in the region, has kept Gaza’s lone border crossing that bypasses Israel, mostly closed. The move has cut the 1.5 million people of the tiny slither from basic essentials such as food, fuel, and medicine.