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Akhbar Al Khaleej (in Arabic أخبار الخليج meaning The Gulf News) is a Bahraini daily publication. It is the sister paper of the English-language daily, Gulf Daily News.

History and profile

The first issue of Akhbar Al Khaleej was published on 1 February 1976. It is one of the Bahrain's oldest daily papers. The first editor-in-chief and founder was Mahmood Al Mardi and its staff composed of mainly Egyptian, Sudanese, and Bahraini journalists. Ali Sayyar, a veteran Bahraini journalist, had a column in the paper.

As of 2006 Anwar Abdul Rahman was the head of the paper. He also served as its editor-in-chief. The publisher is Dar Al Hilal which also publishes Gulf Daily News.

The daily is published in broadsheet format. The 1998 circulation of the daily was 25,000 copies and it was 37,000 copies in 2013.

Political position

The paper is known to be close to Bahrain's main leftist opposition party, National Democratic Action and its columnists include some of the country's most prominent leftists such as Sameera Rajab and Mahmood Al Gassab, who is a leading member of the Jami'at al-Tajammu' al-Qawmi al-Dimuqrat, one of the four opposition societies to the government.

With its Arab nationalist stance, the newspaper has led condemnation of the United States' invasion of Iraq, and has been particularly critical of those Iraqis who have cooperated with the American backed political order: Samira Rajab in 2005 dismissed Iraqi Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as an 'American general'. This resulted in death threats towards Ms Rajab from Shia Islamists — who hold the Iraqi cleric in high regard — and brought to the surface political fissures in the alliance of Shia Islamists and ex-Marxists that had come together to oppose the 2002 Constitution.

Juan Cole on his Informed Comment website discussed the issue:

Al-Hayat reports that Samirah Rajab published an op-ed in the Khalij Times after the recent Iraqi elections in which she referred to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani as "General Sistani" and complained that the Shiite cleric had legitimated the foreign military occupation of Iraq by supporting the elections and by helping pacify the country for the Americans. The article produced vehement protests among the Bahraini Shiite community (the majority of the population), and demands that Bahrain newspapers be censored so as to prevent such comments from appearing in the future.

Shaikh Husain al-Najati, Sistani's representative in Bahrain, complained of the negative and derisive tone toward the grand ayatollah. Rajab had defended Saddam Hussein, and represents a Sunni Arab nationalist point of view that views the rise of Shiite dominance in Iraq as extremely unfortunate. This conflict demonstrates the kinds of tensions between Sunnis and Shiites provoked by the new situation in the Gulf.

On the other hand, the paper is considered to be pro-government.

Controversy

In June 2009, the Ministry of Culture of Bahrain ordered that Akhbar Al Khaleej suspend publication for violating press laws; local sources alleged that it was a response to an article by Samira Rajab, which had attacked Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime in light of the Iranian presidential election and related protests.

See also

• List of newspapers in Bahrain

References

1. ^ "Arab media review. Anti-semitism and other trends" (PDF). Anti-Defamation League. July–December 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 January 2012.
2. "Bahrain". Arab Press Network. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2013.
3. "About IAA". Information Affairs Authority. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
4. Abdallah Shalaby; Salah al Din al Jurshi; Mostafa El Nabarawy; Moheb Zaki; Qays Jawad Azzawi; Antoine Nasri Messarra (2010). Towards a Better Life: How to Improve the State of Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. GPoT. p. 127. ISBN 978-605-4233-21-2.
5. ^ Omran Salman (2 November 2006). "Dissent and Reform in Bahrain: Challenging Government Control of Media" (PDF). American Enterprise Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 October 2014.
6. "Veteran Bahraini journalist Ali Sayyar mourned". GDN Life. 9 October 2019. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
7. ^ "USFG featured in Akhbar Al Khaleej, Bahrain on 16 June 1998". Mir Mohammad Alikhan. Retrieved 14 December 2013.
8. "Clients" (PDF). Hill and Knowlton Strategies. 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 September 2014. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
9. Present conflict looming conflicts Juan Cole. February 2005
10. Bahrain closes paper in Iran row BBC 22 June 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2013.
11. Bahrain blocks paper after Ahmadinejad 'slur' Al Arabiya. 22 June 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2013.

External links

• Akhbar Al Khaleej

• 1976 establishments in Bahrain
• Arabic-language newspapers
• Newspapers published in Bahrain
• Newspapers established in 1976
• Mass media in Manama