Iraq Revokes Licenses of Al Jazeera and 9 Other TV Channels

Iraq’s government revoked the operating licenses of Al Jazeera and nine other television channels, saying that they were inciting sectarian conflict.

All but one of the channels are aligned with Sunni financial backers, and the move was widely perceived as a crackdown on dissent by the Shiite-led government that is facing an increasingly violent Sunni uprising. The decision will not banish the channels from the airwaves: as satellite channels based abroad, they are beyond the reach of the Iraqi government. But it prohibits the channels’ journalists from reporting inside Iraq.