Al Jazeera speech by the leader of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Staff members protested that the speech was not the most important aspect of the debate, and that it was a repetition of previous calls for Arab intervention. "The Guardian" also said in September 2012 that Qatar had taken steps in recent years to consolidate control of Al Jazeera English. A 13 August 2015 article in "The Independent" on poor BBC news reporting also made reference to the political bias in Al Jazeera from the Qatar government. Al Jazeera Al Jazeera (, , literally "The Island", though referring to the
Al Jazeera controversies and criticism Reacting to this, Al Jazeera announced on 2 April 2003, that it would "temporarily freeze all coverage" of Iraq in protest of what Al Jazeera described as unreasonable interference from Iraqi officials. Contrary to some allegations, including the oft-reported comments of Donald Rumsfeld on 4 June 2005, Al Jazeera has never shown beheadings (beheadings have appeared on numerous non-Al Jazeera websites and have sometimes been misattributed to Al Jazeera). On 7 August 2004, the Iraqi Allawi government shut down the Iraq office of Al Jazeera, claiming that it was responsible for presenting a negative image of Iraq, and charging the