Jihadi TV channels in Middle East

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjNBsvwcAoQ
BBC documentary "Freedom to Broadcast Hate" on Arab TV channels that spread sectarian hate

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/03/23/its-not-just-the-jihadi-web/
Witness Wesal TV, a 24-hour channel established in 2009 by salafi jihadists. In sermons, talk shows, and spiked Islamist poetry, a parade of clerics refer to Shi‘a Muslims as “devils,” celebrate their killing, and call on viewers to wage total war against them. In addition to being one of the major media drivers of attacks on Shi‘a in Bahrain, the Saudi government fingered Wesal as having incited a 2015 shooting of Shi‘a worshipers at an annual Ashura ceremony (10 Muharram) marking the death of Imam Hussein. The Saudi information ministry ordered Wesal’s Riyadh offices shut down—but within weeks it had relocated elsewhere. It continues broadcasting region-wide via multiple orbital satellites.
Wesal has many Shi‘a equivalents. One is Al-Ahd, now among the most popular broadcasts in Iraq. Its founder and featured preacher, Qais al-Khazali, heads Asa’ib al-Haq, an Iraqi Shi‘a militia backed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qassem Soleimani. Asa’ib al-Haq is responsible for more than 6,000 attacks on American and coalition forces in Iraq. Fusing traditional Shi‘i invective against Sunni-revered caliphs with spiked reportage on current affairs, it tells its viewers that all Sunnis are collectively guilty for the martyrdom of Shi‘a patron saint Ali and his sons, Hasan and Hussein. It claims that all Sunnis today are ISIS sympathizers; and, for good measure, that all Western influence is repugnant and should be resisted violently.These channels have a symbiotic relationship with social media. Their vitriol provides a critical source of social media content, as clips from the shows are ubiquitous on Twitter and Facebook. The television clerics, like celebrities anywhere, parlay their fame to build up a vast fan base online, and they sustain it over time, unlike web-only sensations, who come and go. In personalizing their relationship with followers, they create a conduit for recruitment.A small number of moderate religious channels.


http://republicbuzz.com/the-militia-in-the-living-room
http://americaabroadmedia.org/sites/default/files/America%20Abroad%20Media_Al-%E2%80%98Ahd-Iraq%20Report_4.132016.pdf
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/04/01/the-militia-in-the-living-room/
Al-‘Ahd, a 24-hour network headquartered in Baghdad serves as the official broadcast of Asa‘ib Ahl al-Haq, an Iran-backed Shi‘a militia. Dubbed “resistance media” by its management, Al-‘Ahd promotes a message of Shi‘i supremacism, incites violence against Iraqi minority communities and foreigners, and serves generally to advance the cultural and political agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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The content tends to revolve thematically around five arguments.
The first is that Sunnis today are collectively guilty for the killing of 7th-century Shi‘i patron saint Ali and his sons, Hasan and Husayn. In this clip from December 2014, for example, Sheikh Ja’far al-Ibrahimi draws from Shi‘i historical tradition to explain why Sunnis today are “Husayn killers” like their ancestors:
The second argument is that humanity as a whole stands with Shi‘i Islam and rejects Sunni contempt for its tenets. Clerics repeatedly assert that people of all religions revere the Shi’i sect and the central figures of its history, and stand with the Shi‘a in the face of the Sunnis’ rejection of their faith. Saying as much serves to embolden radicalized Shi‘a, encouraging them to justify that their armed struggle against Sunnis as somehow sanctioned by the international community.
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Sermons about Islamic history, for example, argue that corrupt behavior by Sunni politicians is not an aberration but rather stems from the inherent corruption of the Sunni creed. And spiked political discussions typically portray all Sunnis as supporting ISIS, implying that all of them are legitimate military targets.
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Al-‘Ahd is only one of numerous Shi‘i channels broadcasting from Baghdad and owned by strong political elements in the country. The list also includes Al-Ittijah, Al-Furat, Al-Ghadir, Biladi, and Karbala. These channels’ owners range from the leadership of the al-Husayn shrine in the Shi‘a holy city of Karbala to former Iraqi Prime Ministers Ibrahim al-Ja’fari and Nuri al-Maliki. Though the channels have many Sunni counterparts in the region, all Sunni Islamist channels have been shut down in Iraq.
In theory, all Iraqi broadcasts are governed by a non-partisan Communications and Media Commission (“CMC”), which has a mandate to revoke the license of any outlet that promulgates hate speech. The CMC has acted on this mandate to close numerous pan-Arab and Sunni Islamist channels—but so far, no Iraqi Shi‘a channels. (The Baghdad office of the Kuwaiti Shi‘i channel Anwar-2 was temporarily closed in 2013 but has since resumed operations.) In 2014, in response to accusations of a double standard, the CMC moved to close former Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Ja’fari’s Biladi. An order of closure was issued by the CMC and upheld by the Iraqi courts—but the station chief ignored the order, and Iraqi police declined to enforce it.


http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/iraqi-moderates-manage-sectarianism.html#ixzz4HEA4DhKh

Oct 11, 2013: 

Among the latest developments of the sectarian crisis that rages in Iraq, dozens of young men organized a provocative march in the predominantly Sunni al-Adhamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad on Oct. 7. They did not chant for a return to unity and the rejection of violence, nor did they condemn bombings and terrorism. They, in fact, hurled insults and cursed Sunni holy historical figures, labeling them “nawasib,” a derogatory term used against Sunnis.

A video clip shows that the group marched with the protection of members of Iraq’s security forces, leading many to doubt the spontaneity of the act. This also raised hypotheses as to the existence of political motives behind the march on the part of parties affiliated with the regime.

This same faction previously established satellite TV channels, such as Fadak and Sawt Alitraa, that transmit from European countries, as well as YouTube channels on which they publicly air insults and curses against some of the Prophet Muhammad’s female relatives and companions who are revered by Sunnis. The faction belongs to an extremist Shiite movement that believes insulting the aforementioned figures is a duty prescribed by their faith.

The faction is faced by an equally extremist Sunni movement that believes Shiites are apostates, the killing of whom is permissible under certain circumstances. It also runs many satellite channels and websites, the most important and best known of them among Iraqis is the Safa Channel, which has been broadcasting for years, sermons and interviews that are degrading and demeaning to Shiites in the region, and Iraq in particular.