Syria Today | Al-Rai TV to continue controversial broadcast

Al-Rai TV to continue controversial broadcast

The owners of a Syrian satellite channel hit with US sanctions for allegedly broadcasting footage of attacks on US soldiers in Iraq have said they will not stop their controversial programming.

The owners of Al-Rai TV, Mishan al-Jubouri, from Iraq, and his wife Rawa al-Usta, from Syria, were hit with US sanctions in September, prohibiting Americans from conducting business with them and freezing any US financial assets and bank accounts. The sanctions followed US accusations that the Damascus-based satellite TV channel was broadcasting footage of attacks on its soliders in Iraq.

In an interview with Syria Today, Jubouri denied the station, which began broadcasting at the end of 2007, was airing attacks on US soldiers in Iraq at the time the sanctions were issued. He said the station only began broadcasting such footage in response to US moves against it.

“The Americans were afraid of the channel before we did anything and my wife, the general director of Al-Rai TV, used to ban any clips of resistance operations from being aired,” Jubouri said. “After the US put us on their blacklist, I took the decision to start showing clips of the resistance in Iraq.”

During Ramadan, Al-Rai TV began airing footage of resistance operations to the US presence in Iraq in its weekly programme The Harvest of Resistance. The programme, presented by Iraqi Hussein Hussein, broadcast interviews with leaders of resistance groups and footage of their attacks against US soldiers in Iraq.

Jubouri said he performed a “coup d’état” on Al-Rai’s broadcasting policies following US sanctions against him, with the aim of making the channel a “mouthpiece for Iraqi resistance groups.”

Jubouri also accused the US of disrupting Al-Rai’s satellite broadcasts. “The Americans started interfering and you couldn’t watch one hour of the channel without there being cuts and technical problems,” he said. Al-Rai now owns technology which prevents the US from disrupting its satellite broadcasts, according to Jubouri. “I challenge the Americans to block us. Even if they bomb the station we will still get our signal out.”