Al Jazeera prevented from covering Hajj

Saudi authorities have banned journalists from Al Jazeera News network from covering and airing the Hajj rituals, according to the director-general of the channel, Yasser Abu Hilalah.

Abu Hilalah denounced the Saudi authorities’ politicization of Hajj by preventing Al Jazeera journalists from performing the ritual, and preventing the coverage of the event, which is being broadcasted by all the media in the world.

“Because of the politicization of Hajj, the journalists of Al Jazeera were prevented from covering an event that concerns the whole world, just as they were denied to practice one of the Islamic pillars that is imposed by Allah on them, and to God we complain!” Abu Hilalah tweeted via his official Twitter account.

The headquarters of Al Jazeera is located in Doha, the capital of Qatar which is currently subject to an air and land embargo following a crisis that broke out on 5 June between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain from one side, and Qatar on the other side.

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The Gulf states cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, expelled all its citizens from their countries and accused it of supporting terrorism a fact which Doha denied.

The blockade states asked Doha to implement 13 demands in order to re-establish the relations. One of these demands was closing Al Jazeera channel and a number of press websites, which Qatar rejected and considered it as a sense of interference in its internal policy and an attempt to impose these countries’ control over Doha.