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Al Jazeera accuses armed forces of jamming satellite signals

Joel Gulhane  /   September 4, 2013  /   0 Comments   /   228 Views

The Qatari based news network identifies four locations where it believes jamming signals are being broadcast

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Al Jazeera has accused the armed forces of interfering with its satellite broadcasting signals in Egypt.
(AFP Photo)

Al Jazeera has accused the armed forces of interfering with its satellite broadcasting signals in Egypt.
The Qatar based news agency, citing a “panel of experts” on Tuesday, claims to have identified four locations where it believes satellite jamming signals are being broadcast from. In a report on its English language channel presenter Sami Zeidan said, “It is clear the common link in all of these locations is the presence of military facilities.” Al Jazeera also refused to name its correspondent reporting from Cairo via telephone, citing security reasons.
In its report Al Jazeera showed a map of Cairo and the surrounding area identifying two locations on the Cairo-Suez road, one on the Cairo-Alexandria road and one in Heliopolis. Zeidan’s report states that the panel of experts believe the jamming signal location is accurate to a 1.6km area. In all four locations shown on the map the report shows armed forces installation within the 1.6km radius.
Al Jazeera reported that it “has been forced to change frequencies several times to allow viewers to continue to watch the network’s news and sport channels.”
The network says it has been targeted by the Egyptian authorities since the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi at the beginning of July.
The Administrative Court of the State Council ruled on Tuesday to close Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr, the network’s channel for Egypt. The judge in the case said the decision to close the channel along with three Islamist channels was made due to the channels’ “dissemination of rumours and false, misleading news, which might cause strife in the community between citizens and panic among them.”
Three foreign Al-Jazeera reporters were deported by the Egyptian authorities last Sunday having been held without charge for five days before being forced to leave the country.
The offices of Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr were raided by security forces towards the end of August and broadcasting equipment was confiscated.
Al Jazeera denies any accusation that it is bias and “says it carries no torch for any political party,” according to the network’s report.

Egypt accused of jamming al-Jazeera

Broadcaster says it has pinpointed four different sources of jamming after commissioning an interference detection company

• theguardian.com, Monday 2 September 2013 16.54 BST

Al-Jazeera claims it has pinpointed four locations where the Egyptian government is jamming its signals. Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

The Egyptian government has been accused of jamming the signal of al-Jazeera, the pan-Arabic news channel, for the past seven weeks.
It has also been blamed for blocking the broadcaster from sending out raw TV feeds on the Egyptian crisis to other broadcasters.
The Qatar-based channel's head of teleport, Ibrahim Nassar, told MediaGuardian it has pinpointed four different locations for the source of jamming after commissioning an interference detection company, Integral Systems Europe, to investigate the problem. Three of these were east of Cairo and one was in the desert west of the capital.
Nassar said its Egyptian service, al-Jazeera Mubasher, had been subjected to jamming every day between the hours of 7am and midnight since 5 July. It broadcasts on the Egyptian-owned Nilesat satellite.
The second operation, providing broadcasters with TV feeds, is fed through a satellite owned by the Arab League countries, Arabsat, and has also been subjected to interference, although the last record of jamming was on 7 August.
"There is a big campaign against us even in the Egyptian media," said Nassar. He said the broadcaster will appeal to the Egyptian authorities to stop blocking its TV feeds on Arabsat through the International Telecommunications Union but that usually this process is not enough.
Al-Jazeera believes the blocking of its signal in Egypt is part of a concerted campaign to close it down, which includes the arrest of reporters and cameraman working for the broadcaster in Cairo.
The Egyptian government hit back, saying if al-Jazeera had any evidence that the government was blocking its services, it should make a formal complaint to Cairo.
It also denied targeting the station, and accused it of stoking anti-government sentiment with pro-Muslim Brotherhood policies.
"We have had hundreds of claims that they are inciting people, they are misleading them and fabricating reports. They put cameras in Tahrir Square and exaggerated the number of protestors; they invited biased guests on and insult millions of Egyptian people. They support the Muslim Brotherhood … they should judge themselves before they make these claims," said a spokeswoman at the Egyptian embassy in London.
Egyptian authorities deported three al-Jazeera journalists on Sunday, days after the channel carried appeals from leaders of ousted-president Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood to stage protests against the army-backed government.
Qatar was a strong financial backer of Brotherhood rule and opposes the army's overthrow of Morsi and the ensuing bloody crackdown on his movement.
Al-Jazeera's offices in Cairo have been closed since 3 July, when they were raided by security forces hours after Morsi was toppled, although the channel, broadcast from Qatar, can still be seen in Egypt. Security officials at Cairo airport said Wayne Hay, Adil Bradlow and Russ Finn were put on an Egyptian plane bound for London, after being forced to leave their equipment behind.
Last Thursday, Qatar Satellite Company launched its first satellite as part of a wider strategy to secure technical independence in the Middle East, but it will not be ready for broadcast use until December. The satellite is co-owned by Eutelsat, the European satellite operator, and will have the capacity to carry dozens of channels.
It is not the first time that al-Jazeera has fallen foul of the Egyptian authorities. In 2011, the government closed 16 satellite channels including al-Jazeera Mubasher, claiming the news channel "did not abide by Egyptian law and disregarded Egyptian sovereignty".