Arab quartet sends formal complaint about Al Jazeera to British broadcast watchdog

The British broadcasting regulator has been accused of giving “global credibility” to the Arabic-language Al Jazeera television channel which is embroiled in the dispute with Qatar.

The ambassadors to the UK of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain – which broke relations with Qatar nearly four months ago – have written to Ofcom complaining about Al Jazeera’s Arabic service, which is available in millions of British homes, The Times reported.

Al Jazeera is based in Doha and the four countries boycotting Qatar accuse the TV station of promoting an extremist agenda.

Closing down the station and its afiliates was one of the conditions imposed by the Arab quartet leadership for lifting the boycott on Qatar.

The complaint from the quartet to Ofcom risks dragging the British regulator into a power struggle in the Middle East over claims that Qatar, which finances the Al Jazeera network, supports terrorism.

The ambassadors have highlighted the channel’s allegedly “positive or sympathetic” coverage of ISIL, including references to it as an “organisation”, rather than a terrorist group. They say that Al Jazeera “seeks to gain global credibility” from the fact that Ofcom regulates the English language channel.

An Ofcom spokeswoman said it had “passed this letter of complaint to the media regulator in Italy, where the [Arabic] channel holds its licence, for urgent consideration”. Al Jazeera Media Network did not respond to requests for comment.