Al Jazeera Media Network 1 November 1996 following the closure of the first BBC Arabic language television station, then a joint venture with Orbit Communications Company, owned by Saudi King Fahd's cousin, Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud. The BBC channel had closed after a year and a half when the Saudi government attempted to thwart a documentary pertaining to executions under sharia law. The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, provided a loan of QAR 500 million ($137 million) to sustain Al Jazeera through its first five years, as Hugh Miles detailed in his book "Al Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab
Al Jazeera controversies and criticism Jazeera has filed a lawsuit against the Egyptian "al-Ahram" newspaper for an article posted on 9 June 2010 named "Jazeerat al-Taharoush" ("Al Jazeera: An Island of Harassment"), which Al Jazeera finds to be "wholly deceptive and journalistically unprofessional" with an aim to "damage the reputation of the Al Jazeera Network". The Egyptian regime would later collapse as a result of the Arab Spring. 22 members of staff of "Al Jazeera"'s Egyptian bureau announced their resignation on July 8, 2013, citing "biased" coverage of the ongoing Egyptian power redistribution in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood. In September 2013, a court in