Al Jazeera 500 million Qatari riyals (US$137 million) from the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa. By securing its funding through loans or grants rather than direct government subsidies, the channel seeks to maintain independent editorial policy. The channel began broadcasting in late 1996, with many staff joining from the BBC World Service's Saudi-co-owned Arabic-language TV station, which had shut down on 1 April 1996 after two years of operation because of censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government. The Al Jazeera logo is a decorative representation of the network's name written using Arabic calligraphy. It was selected by the station's
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