Al Jazeera staff quits over refusal of station to report on Bahraini crackdown

From Russia Today:

Qatari TV Channel Al Jazeera is gripped with loud resignations. Key employees in its Beirut office have reportedly resigned over the “biased” stance the television sticks to.

Al Jazeera has recently lost several of its key employees in the Beirut office: Managing Director Hassan Shaaban resigned his post, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported on Sunday. This follows a series of resignations by the television’s staff in the office, including correspondent Ali Hashem and producer Mousa Ahmad.

While little is known about the resignation of Hassan Shaaban, other than he quit over the biased policy of the channel in covering the Arab Spring – especially events in Syria and Bahrain – there is more information concerning correspondent Ali Hashem.

The latter resigned his post last Tuesday and emails leaked by the Syrian hackers showed his frustration over the channel’s policies in covering the events in Syria, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar quoted a source in the station as saying.

“You can check the emails he sent to his colleague, Rula Ibrahim, to know his position which changed after the station refused to show photos he had taken of armed fighters clashing with the Syrian Army in Wadi Khaled. Instead [Al Jazeera] lambasted him as a shabeeh [implying a regime loyalist],” the source said.

The reporter is also said to have been embarrassed with the channel’s refusal to cover the uprising in Bahrain. “[In Bahrain], we were seeing pictures of a people being butchered by the ‘Gulf’s oppression machine’, and for Al Jazeera, silence was the name of the game,” according to the source.