Saudi broadcaster sparks outrage after branding Hamas leaders as terrorists

A Saudi-owned news channel has come under fire after it aired a report last week characterising Hamas and Hezbollah leaders as “terrorists”.

The report by the MBC broadcaster, which sparked a fierce backlash online, branded several groups and individuals as “the faces of terrorism,” including slain Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, along with the recently killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, killed in 2020, and al-Qaeda and its late leader Osama bin Laden, killed by US forces in 2011.

Saudi Arabia's media authority ordered an investigation into MBC after the backlash, saying the report violated its media policy.

It added regulators are “continuously monitoring the extent to which media outlets adhere to the kingdom’s media regulations and content controls and will not be lenient in enforcing the rules on any violators".

The report has since been removed from all platforms.

In Iraq, hundreds of protesters stormed and set fire to the channel’s offices in Baghdad following the report, filming themselves vandalising equipment and smashing computers.

Shortly after, Iraqi regulators suspended the channel’s operating licence for “violating media broadcasting regulations”.

“Given the MBC satellite channel’s violation of media broadcasting regulations via its repeated violations and its attacks on the martyrs, leaders of victory, and heroic resistance leaders who are fighting the battle of honour against the usurping Zionist entity, we confirm taking all necessary legal measures and suspending it from operating in Iraq,” the Iraqi regulator said in a statement published by the state news agency.