The Moroccan government eventually did what it had been contemplating doing for years: closing the office of Al Jazeera in Rabat. There are many reasons behind the closure of the channel’s office, but the most important one is that the Doha-based channel, according to the Moroccan Communications Minister Khalid Naciri, is pro-the Polisario Front.
If you ask Khlaid Naciri or any other Moroccan government official to shed more light on how Al Jazeera TV channel served the agenda of the Polisario, he will, for instance, say that Al Jazeera opens its microphone only to the proponents of the Polisario Front, but it invariably turns its back on critics and opponents of the Front. In other words, Al Jazeera would have given as much attention as possible to Mutapha Salma Ould Sidi Mouloud] [Fr] had he criticized the Moroccan autonomy project, and the sole reason behind the blanket coverage Al Jazeera gave to Aminatou Haidar is the fact that she is a separatist.
It’s regrettable that most Moroccan newspapers toed the Moroccan government line when it comes to the reasons behind the shutdown of Al Jazeera‘s office in Rabat. Add to this that some of them accused Al Jazeera of reporting a one-side of the story. According to them, Al Jazeera gives voice only to the separatists, but it seldom invites Moroccan government officials and Polisario opponents to comment on a news story related to the Sahara issue.
For me, as for others, such newspapers throw stones at others though their houses are made of glass. It’s plain clear that the Moroccan Communications Ministry was the sole source they relied on to let their readers know about the reasons behind the closure of Al Jazeera’s bureau, and that almost none of them conducted an interview with one of Al Jazeera’s reporters in Morocco so that their readers could know what the other side of the story thought of the reasons that led the Moroccan government to shut down Al Jazeera’s office in Rabat. The same, needless to say, is true of Moroccan TV channels, particularly 2M and RTM.
What Moroccans would have known had their newspapers and TV channels asked Al-Jazeera's bureau director or one of its journalists in Morocco to comment on the reasons the Moroccan government gave for closing the bureau of Al Jazeera is that Al Jazeera did invite Moroccan government officials to comment on different Moroccan affairs, including the Sahara issue, but most of them said no to Al Jazeera’s invitations.
Recently, I asked on Facebook one of Al Jazeera’s reporters in Morocco why Moroccan government officials usually refused to discuss on Al Jazeera topics related to the Moroccan Sahara. He wrote in reply to my question that they avoided appearing on Al Jazeera, particularly when they knew that the topic under discussion would be “the Western Sahara”, in order not to lose their seats through making comments that may enrage “the highest circles of power” in Morocco.
In brief, the Moroccan government closed the bureau of Al Jazeera, not because it is pro-the Polisario or something similar, but because most Moroccan government members do not have the guts to answer the deep and provocative questions Al Jazeera journalists always ask their guests.
الجزيرة توك لا تعبر عن شبكة الجزيرة ولا العاملين فيها، والموضوعات المنشورة لا تعبر بالضرورة عن رأي الموقع
