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Iraq's media commission accused the stations of misleading and exaggerated reports, airing "clear calls for disorder" and "launching retaliatory criminal attacks against security forces." It also blamed the stations for promoting "banned terrorist organizations who committed crimes against Iraqi people." Osama Abdul-Rahman, a Sunni government employee from northern Baghdad, said the government is adopting a double-standard policy regarding media outlets by turning a blind eye on several Shiite channels that he claims also incite violence. "The channels close to main Shiite parties and even the state-run television also broadcast sectarian programs promoting violence all the time, yet, nobody stops them," he added. Erin Evers, a Mideast researcher for Human Rights Watch, called the government's claim that it moved against the channels because they were inciting sectarianism suspicious given its "consistent history of cracking down on media
-- particularly opposition media -- during politically sensitive times." "The cancellation of these stations' licenses is further evidence that the government seeks to prevent the coverage of news they do not like," she said. She accused the Iraqi media commission of confusing coverage of a speech with sectarian overtones with the active promotion of sectarian violence. "These are two completely different things, and the first is protected under international and Iraqi law," she said.
The decision to suspend the stations came as al-Maliki made a rare appearance at an official funeral for five soldiers killed on Saturday by gunmen in Sunni-dominated Anbar province. Local police in the province said the soldiers were killed in a gunbattle after their vehicle was stopped near a Sunni protest camp. Authorities had given protest organizers a 24-deadline to hand over the gunmen behind the killing or face a "firm response." No one has been handed over and the deadline passed. Wrapped in Iraqi flags, the five caskets were loaded on military trucks next to flower bouquets, as soldiers held pictures of the deceased and grieved families gathered outside the Defense Ministry building in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. In Saturday violence, gunmen using guns fitted with silencers shot dead two Sunni local tribal leaders in two separate drive-by shootings south of Baghdad.
[Associated
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