WASHINGTON: In an attempt that seriously undermines the concept of media freedom in the US, a major campaign has started in Washington to clip the wings of Al Jazeera and silence the network by pushing for the Qatar-based news network to be registered as a foreign agent in the US, reports say.
Some members of Congress are fervently working towards this goal. The campaign is orchestrated and funded by the UAE and Saudi Arabia who had been trying for the closure of Al Jazeera for years. This is yet another attempt to silence the network.
The UAE has hired lobbyists to meet with lawmakers and their staffers, pushing them to demand that Al Jazeera be required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The act would place severe restrictions on the network’s ability to broadcast freely.
Last year, eight lawmakers, led by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, asked the US Justice Department to probe whether Al Jazeera should register under FARA. In March, 2018, a bipartisan group of lawmakers urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to enforce the FARA with respect to Al Jazeera.
Registration under FARA could lead to the network being denied access to certain events in the US and perhaps being stripped of press accreditation that currently gives the network access to certain areas of the Capitol building in Washington.
Moreover, once on the FARA list, many scholars, academics and experts who currently appear as guests on Al Jazeera would likely be hesitant to return given the stigma of the network being a “foreign agent”. This would compromise the quality and substance of the network.
The push to force the network to register as a foreign agent continued last month, as a set of congressional Republicans led by Florida Senator Marco Rubio and New York Representative Lee Zeldin demanded that Al Jazeera be required to register under FARA, arguing that its activities were aligned with the Qatari state’s foreign policy priorities.
Experts say the move against Al Jazeera is a move against media freedom, setting a precedent that would embolden a rising global tendency among governments to censor speech that does not necessarily support their geopolitical ambitions.
“Al Jazeera is far from perfect, but for those who hope to see a more democratic Arab world, the network has shown that even news outlets and voices that lack an autocratic stamp of approval can find a place in the public discourse,” journalism professor Philip Seib noted in a 2017 article published by Salon.
However, even if this targeted campaign reaches its objective, it would not necessarily affect the channel’s global influence and reach, particularly in the Arab world.
But viewers in the US would lose an important source of transparent coverage from the Middle East.