It has been more than eight months since the siege of Qatar began, following a hack of the Qatar News Agency and false news being posted in it.

And now, Dubai-based satellite broadcaster Al Arabiya News Channel, owned by a Saudi businessmen, has surrendered its licence with the UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom with immediate effect, reported Gulf Times.

The latest development came following a complaint over the channel’s involvement in covering the crime of hacking the QNA, said British law firm Carter-Ruck.

QNA had hired Carter-Ruck to submit a complaint at Ofcom against Al Arabiya and Sky News Arabia for broadcasting fabricated and false statements attributed to HH The Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani after QNA’s website was hacked on May 24, 2017.

The crime was used by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE to justify the siege that they have been imposing on Qatar since June 5, 2017.

Based on the complaint, Ofcom, which regulates the conduct and output of broadcasters who broadcast in the United Kingdom and elsewhere within the European Union, had announced that it was taking measures to handle such issues, reported The Peninsula.

Al Arabiya surrendered its license in order to avoid an investigation which could have resulted in the imposition of substantial fines and other penalties and even in revocation of the license due to previous violations.

Al Arabiya had previously been heavily sanctioned by Ofcom over a material broadcast in 2016. On that occasion, Ofcom found Al Arabiya to have breached its regulatory obligations to treat subjects fairly and justly and not to intrude upon privacy in unwarranted circumstances. Among other sanctions, Ofcom imposed a fine of £120,000 on the broadcaster, reported Qatar Tribune.

Following the surrender of its licence, Al Arabiya will no longer be able to broadcast in the UK or elsewhere in the European Union. 

Meanwhile, QNA Director General Youssef Ibrahim Abdulrahman Al Maliki said Al Arabiya’s surrendering of its UK licence indicates that the channel had committed punishable crimes, according to The Peninsula.

Al Arabiya’s broadcasting of fabricated and baseless statements, attributed to HH The Emir, despite clarification by Qatari officials, indicated bad intention. He said such coverage breached all rules, ethics and morality of the media.

Image courtesy: Al Jazeera