Freedom of the Press?

Reported:

WikiLeaks: Qatar ‘uses Al-Jazeera as bargaining chip’

Qatar is using the Arabic TV news channel Al-Jazeera as a bargaining chip in negotiations with other countries, US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks suggested today...It has also offered to drop critical transmissions in exchange for concessions, the cables suggested. A US dispatch from November 2009 predicted the station could be used “as a bargaining tool to repair relationships with other countries, particularly those soured by Al-Jazeera’s broadcasts, including the United States.”

...In an example of the channel being used for political ends, the embassy in Doha said Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani proposed a bargain with the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The Qatari leader told US Senator John Kerry he had proposed a bargain with the Egyptian president which involved stopping broadcasts in Egypt if Cairo changed its position on Israel-Palestinian negotiations.

“[The Qatari prime minister] had told Mubarak ‘we would stop Al-Jazeera for a year’ if he agreed in that span of time to deliver a lasting settlement for the Palestinians,” according to a cable from the US embassy in Doha in February. “Mubarak said nothing in response, according to [the Qatari leader].”

Rebuttal here.
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