Al-Jazeera Correspondent: Channel Supplied Rebels with Satellite Communication Tools

Local Editor

Former correspondent of al-Jazeera Qatari-funded tv channel, Ali Hashem told Russia Today that al-Jazeera has supplied Syrian rebels with satellite communication tools to ensure telephone and Internet connection that were smuggled from Lebanon.
The channel paid $50,000 to smuggling phones and other tools across the Syrian border to ensure they would get an inside picture, RT quoted Ali Hashim.
A month ago, Hashim and two other correspondents working for al-Jazeera in Lebanon, stepped down from their jobs over a dispute over how the Arab Spring should be covered. Reporting popular unrest in Bahrain and Syria revealed the acutest differences between the correspondents and the TV administration.
"The channel was taking a certain stance. It was meddling with each and every detail of reports on the Syrian revolution. At the same time it was almost covering up what was going on in Bahrain," recalled Hashim.

The journalist said Qatar authorities actually decided the channel's agenda and created their own version of the Syrian crisis.
"We went to the border between Lebanon and Syria. There it became obvious that militants entered Syria from Lebanon to clash with the Syrian regular army, which was 3 kilometers away from the border," Hashim told RT.
"We took photos of those people, but the channel declined them. I was asked to forget about the militants and to return to Beirut," RT cited Hashem as saying.
In an earlier interview with the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, Hashim called al-Jazeera's policy "informational suicide."
The Syrian government has repeatedly slammed the unbalanced coverage of the uprising by some Arab news channels.

Source: Russia Today