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Iraqi Airways bans Saudi paper from its flights

November 22, 2016 at 9:31 am

The Iraqi Ministry of Transportation has banned the circulation of the Saudi run Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on board Iraqi Airways flights after the paper published “lies” that insult the Iraqi people.

In a press release published yesterday, Transport Minister Kazem Finjan said his ministry has also stopped all dealings with the newspaper in any form including promoting and advertising it because it publishes lies that insult the majority of the Iraqi people as well as their religious rituals and sanctities.

The London-based newspaper published a report quoting World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman, Gregory Hartl, saying: “Following religious events in Iraq last year which involved millions of Iraqi men and women and more than two million Iranians, more than 169 cases of unplanned pregnancies were documented among Iraqi women in southern Iraq.”

The WHO rejected the report and described it as “false”, prompting the newspaper to apologise and dismiss its Baghdad editor.