How dare Al-Jazeera give coverage to the death of the Pope? It is…humiliating! I thought this hooligan channel was supposed to be dedicated to defending Islam!
“Arab media coverage of Catholic leader’s death infuriates Islamists,” from AFP, with thanks to EPG (yes, this is beginning to sound like a New Deal-era news report, but that’s just because I’m still annoyed at FDR today over DST):
Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, famed for screening “exclusive” videotapes from Islamic militants including Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was among the first to announce the pope’s death. On Sunday it continued providing widespread coverage of his life and death, as did Dubai-based Al-Arabiya….
But radical Islamists, who advocate the expulsion of non-Muslims from Islamic countries, have been using Islamist Web sites to vent their anger at Arab television stations for according the pope such importance.
One such user lashed out at Al-Jazeera, saying viewers were “annoyed” with extensive reports eulogizing the pope, who the user described as an “old tyrant.”
“What is mortifying is that this hooligan channel pretends [to defend] Islam,” added the user, who wrote under the name Muhib al-Salihine on the Islamic News Network, a site often used by Islamist militants operating in Iraq.
“What is more humiliating – I think that it was Al-Arabiya channel – is that the imam of a mosque … praised the memory [of the pope],” said Seri Eddine le Libyen on the same site.
“I have started to hate Al-Jazeera for the multiplicity of information on the grieving” for the pope, said another user.