DOHA: Al Jazeera has denied reports circulating in the media about its reporter Ghada Owais (pictured) announcing a bounty of $1m on the head of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
The channel said the announcement made on behalf of Owais on Facebook and Twitter was totally false. Ghada Owais had officially denied owning an account on the social networks, Ibrahim Helal, director of Al Jazeera Arabic News, said in statement, denying a similar report that appeared in The Peninsula yesterday quoting Al Sharq.
“All accounts claiming to belong to me are in fact false and pretending to represent me. I officially disown these accounts. I am not responsible for any of what is being posted, in any form, on them,” Owais was quoted as saying in the statement.
She added that she had reported the incident, through Al Jazeera Network, to Facebook and requested it to shut down these accounts, “whether they are pro- or anti- the Syrian revolution, for claiming to represent me.”
“These smear campaigns are just current examples of threats made by some Syrian regime supporters against some of our key presenters and correspondents of Al Jazeera Channel,” said Helal.
Threats against Al Jazeera staff on social media and other outlets in recent weeks were made to put pressure on the network to change its editorial line with regard to the conflict in Syria and other regions of conflict, he added.
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