From the Washington Free Beacon
The Al Jazeera news channel has been caught airing what appears to be the fake death of a Muslim Brotherhood-backed protestor in Egypt, according to reports.
As violence between Muslim Brotherhood protestors and Egyptian security forces rages in the Middle Eastern country, Al Jazeera has run a flurry of coverage that critics say is sympathetic to the Brotherhood.
A supposedly dead protestor was filmed and broadcast earlier this week on Al Jazeera.
As a distraught woman yells in Arabic, the man in question can be seen clutching what is described as a gunshot wound. However, when the man’s hand is moved it becomes apparent that he has not been injured despite a pool of blood.
The fake death was first flagged by FSA Crimes, an advocacy website that tracks alleged war crimes committed by rebel fighters battling Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
“Covered in blood, his hand rests on what would seem to be the source of that blood, a gunshot wound,” FSA write of the apparently staged death.
“‘Doctors’ surrounding him as he lays there, eyes shut and face frozen,” FSA writes. “One of the ‘doctors’ then decide to lift the mans shirt up and to the viewers big surprise, there is no wound underneath the shirt!”
“The supposed dead man, wanting to obstruct the view of his non-wound for the camera, then effortlessly re-positions his legs in way of the camera,” according to FSA Crimes.
Al Jazeera quickly cuts to a different angle once the man moves.
FSA Crimes says that the video is proof that the Qatari-owned and funded station is biased in favor the Muslim Brotherhood, which is protesting the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
“The strong bias of Al Jazeera in Egypt was always to be expected,” FSA writes. “Their support for the Muslim Brotherhood was a given and there was never any doubt that the new interim government had their suspicions about the news agency.”
The Muslim Brotherhood has been known to inflate the numbers of those wounded in protests and has been caught faking violence in the past.
Al Jazeera’s American station began broadcasting on U.S. television today. Though the news organization claims that it will be neutral, critics worry that it will adopt that same biases as its Arabic sister station.
“Al Jazeera acquired Current TV for $500 million in January to start an American channel, after trying unsuccessfully for years to win cable and satellite carriage for its English-language international news channel,” the New York Times reported.
“Al Jazeera will start in about 48 million of the country’s roughly 100 million homes that subscribe to television.”
