Journalist tried to enter illegally: report

Manama : A journalist from Qatari Al Jazeera channel attempted to enter the country illegally, BNA said quoting a ministry source. 

The agency, quoting an official source at the Ministry of Information Affairs, said, “The journalist, a Tel Aviv resident, is a US national and a correspondent for the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel in both Iraq and Israel.”

He, BNA said, arrived in Bahrain under the pretext of covering an event without receiving an official invitation or presenting the media visa required from on-duty journalists to enter the Kingdom. The ministry, in the application of the law, banned his entry to Bahrain, the agency said citing the source.

“The Ministry of Information Affairs is fully aware of the purposes of this repeated and irresponsible behaviour by the Qatari channel by which it seeks to incite public opinion and disseminate inaccurate information,” the ministry was quoted as saying. 

The ministry, BNA said, called upon the regional and international media to abide by the laws and regulations whenever they wanted to cover events and functions in Bahrain. “The Ministry of Information Affairs welcomes all media to cover the various activities in the Kingdom provided that they abide by the laws and regulations governing media work in Bahrain,” the source said.