Al-Jazeera English: Qatari platform with foreign administration to serve Doha’s objectives

Eslam Mohamed

Al-Jazeera English’s original role in promoting the policies of the Qatari regime has been brought to the forefront again after the leaks published by Qatari dissident Khaled Al-Hail, as he published an old recording in which he revealed a dialogue between the editor-in-chief of Al-Jazeera and the general director of its programs with late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The first confirmed that former Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa directly supervised the channel and that he aspired to establish an English channel.

The English-language news channel came to become a branch of the Al-Jazeera network, which is headquartered in Qatar. It was scheduled to start broadcasting in June 2006, but the broadcast was delayed until November 15, 2006, and it changed its name from Al-Jazeera International to Al-Jazeera English one day before the start of broadcast.

Foreign control

Since its inception, foreigners have controlled the most important sites within the Qatari channel. Among the most prominent cadres of the international station are David Frost, a British journalist, writer and TV presenter, and the American Jewish journalist Dave Marash, as well as Riz Khan, a British television presenter who worked in several well-known stations, including the BBC and CNN, in addition to Rageh Omaar, who worked as a British television presenter.

The presence of foreigners in the channel was reflected in the language of dialogue and editorial policy in general, for example, under the justification of the difference in the target segment of the audience and its focus on the Western citizen who spoke the English language. The extent of the change in the language of speech between the Arabic and English versions can be noticed, as the latter appears in a completely Western dress.

Great controversy since its inception

The channel has raised a lot of controversy about it since its first day, due to its affiliation with the Qatari regime. Recently, media pressure has escalated against the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel in the United States, following a number of members of the Senate and Congress demanding that the Attorney General apply the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on Al-Jazeera.

Among the US lawmakers who addressed the Attorney General were Republican Senator from Florida Marco Rubio, Republican Representative from New York Lee Zeldin, Senator Tom Cotton, a member of the Senate Intelligence and Defense Committee, and Senator Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in addition to Lizzie Deane, Brian Mast, Jack Bergman, Ann Wagner, Steve Chabot and Peter King.

The letter stated that in order to protect the national interests of the United States from the unjustified influence of foreign countries and to ensure that the law is strictly enforced, the congressional members asked the Department of Justice to request Al-Jazeera, the media network owned and funded by Qatar, to register under the Registration Law Foreign Agents (FARA) and new Federal Communications Laws (FCC) compliance with foreign media that are under government control.

The lawmakers’ address focused on the fact that Al-Jazeera is not an independent platform, but is functionally silenced when it comes to covering local Qatari news. It also turns a blind eye to terrorist financing issues, which are the charges against Qatar, and Al-Jazeera is subject to a new law issued by the Emir of Qatar in January 2020 prohibiting all Qatari media from publishing any “rumors, statements, false or biased news, or inflammatory propaganda, locally or abroad, with the intention of harming national interests, stirring up public opinion, or infringing on the social or public order of the Qatari state, similar to the Qatari government.” Al-Jazeera promotes Islamist authoritarianism of the Brotherhood. During the Arab Spring, Doha threw its weight behind the world governments allied with the Brotherhood, and this was reflected in the channel’s performance.