Al-Jazeera says broadcasting disrupted

2011-02-02 10:59

Doha - Al-Jazeera's broadcasting has been disrupted across the Arab region, said the Doha-based channel which has run round-the-clock coverage of the mass protests in Egypt for the past eight days.

"Signals on the Nilesat platform were cut, and frequencies on the Arabsat and Hotbird platforms were disrupted continually... across the Arab world," the news satellite channel said in a statement late on Tuesday.

Al-Jazeera, which has been facing growing clampdowns by Egyptian authorities over its coverage of the protests, said that "their broadcast signal across the Arab region is facing interference on a scale they have not experienced before".

The pan-Arab channel has said that Egyptian police detained six foreign journalists working for its English service for several hours on Monday and their camera was withheld.

"Over the past week the network has faced multiple attempts to disrupt their coverage from Egypt, with signals being interfered with on a continual basis, and journalists being banned and detained," it said.

"The latest disruption has come on the day of the historic ‘million man march’ in Cairo," the channel said referring to a mass demonstration that brought a million people into the country's streets on Tuesday.

Al-Jazeera said earlier that the attempted shutdown of its operations in Egypt - after unprecedented and often violent street protests - was aimed at "censoring and silencing the voices of the Egyptian people".

Clashes between protesters and Egyptian security personnel have left an estimated 300 people dead and more than 3 000 injured.

- SAPA