Shafaq News / A force from the Ministry of Interior, accompanied by a representative of the Media and Communications Authority, stormed Dijla TV office in Baghdad, hours after the Jordanian government decided to suspend the work of the channel in Amman for a month.

The adapter  of Al-Qarar program, Hassan Hamed Serdah told the Freedom of the Press Association that the force raided the channel and asked staff and guests of the news bulletin after midnight to leave the channel, and not to return to open it again.

The Defense of Freedom of the Press Association in Iraq had seen a copy of the letter issued by the Jordanian Media Authority, which included stopping the broadcast of Dijla satellite channel for a month from the date (27/1/2020) under the pretext that the channel violated the broadcasting rules.

However, the channel continued to broadcast from Baghdad with another frequency, until 0.30 after midnight.

The association regards the closure of Dijla channel as a flagrant constitutional violation and a legal violation, since the constitution guarantees freedom of journalism in all its forms, and that the Iraqi Media and Communications Authority is a regulatory not a regulatory body, and has no right to stop broadcasting any channel without a court order.

The association also calls on the Media and Communications association to desist from arbitrary exercise of the right of media organizations and to observe the standards of freedom of the media and press in Iraq.

The association expresses its surprise that the Ministry of Interior and the Media and Communications association stopped Dijla broadcasting, in conjunction with the suspension of its work license in Jordan, as this indicates the presence of correspondence between the Iraqi and Jordanian authorities to stop the channel.