Bahrain says Qatar media is making diplomatic crisis worse

Bahrain’s information minister condemned what he called “the subversive” role of Qatar’s media in the ongoing diplomatic crisis.

The minister, Ali bin Mohammed Al Rumaihi, accused Al Jazeera of targeting Bahrain with fake news and hundreds of negative reports on the kingdom. Qatar’s media had attacked Bahrain and directly interfered in its internal affairs through the news channel, he said.

Qatar’s media policies were part of the problem, rather than the solution to the current crisis, which had been simmering long before diplomatic ties were severed on June 5.

“Al Jazeera relies on the virtual world with its wide spectrum of fake and bogus accounts for its statistics and public opinion surveys. The channel has broadcast more than 900 negative reports and news items on Bahrain,” the minister said.

“The history of the crisis with Qatar is rooted in the Doharun media policies, which ignored the kinship of the Arabian Gulf countries.”

Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Anwar Gargash, yesterday referred to unnamed media outlets who use sensationalism

that is “not befitting of the environment of a hereditary monarchy, which has to tolerate it”.

Dr Gargash continued on Twitter, saying it was unfortunate “when illusions dominate realities”.

“Qatar’s arrogant stance accuses the UAE of starting the campaign against them,” Dr Gargash said. “Qatar is burning bridges and is banking on external influences to mediate the crisis, which will result in deepening the crisis.”

Dr Gargash urged Doha to come to Riyadh willing to negotiate the 13 demands issued by the quartet.

Meanwhile, Asharq Alawsat, a newspaper with its headquarters in London, said Qatar plotted with Iran and Hizbollah to start a war in the southern borderlands of Saudi Arabia in 2009.

The pan-Arab newspaper quoted a Yemeni political and security researcher, Mohammed Al Walas, who obtained leaked documents from Yemen’s intelligence archives that allegedly reveal Qatar’s ties with Houthi rebels during the rule of Yemen’s ousted president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, between 2000 and 2013.

The documents highlight Qatar’s mediation in the release of Houthi detainees held in Mr Saleh’s prisons as well as its financial support for the Houthis for four years before they started an insurgency in 2004 in Saada, north Yemen, the paper reported.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties and imposed sanctions on Doha in June, including the closure of their airspace to Qatari airlines and blocking broadcaster Al Jazeera.