CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt has stopped its satellite transmission of a private Iraqi channel whose pro-Sunni programming came under criticism from the U.S. and Iraqi governments, an Information Ministry official said Monday. The chairman of the board of NileSat, the country's government-owned satellite, said the Al-Zawraa feed was cut for technical reasons and not as an act of censorship. The channel's owner said the move as politically motivated and said he would sue Egypt. "The transmission frequency of the channel interferes with the other channels broadcast by NileSat," Amin Basyouni, NileSat's chairman, told The Associated Press. "We have no authority over what these channels show. We believe in freedom of expression."Al-Zawraa's owner, Mishan al-Jabouri, was skeptical and said he would sue. "The Americans are very angry with the station because it shows the real image of resistance, not so-called terrorism, and increasing resistance against the occupation," Al-Jabouri said in a phone call from Damascus, Syria, where he lives in exile. "It seems as if the Egyptians are punishing us for that." Al-Jabouri said his channel is still being transmitted by another satellite, Arabsat.
| Al-Jabouri, a Sunni Iraqi lawmaker, was accused of embezzling $7 million from an oil pipeline security fund in October, stripped of his parliamentary immunity and fled to Syria. |
Iraqi security forces shut down Al-Zawraa's Baghdad offices in November, saying it was "inciting hatred and instigating violence." But it has managed to continue operating, apparently working from Sunni areas of Iraq. The State Department said last month that the U.S. and Iraqi embassies in Cairo had asked the Egyptian government to remove the channel from NileSat. Basyouni, the NileSat chairman, said Al-Zawraa pays the company $300,000 a year for transmission. He said he could not shut down the channel without an order from the Egyptian government, which he said he has not received.