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Progressive website Al-Jazeerah.info was "knocked-off" this weekend; yet another casualty of the erosion of our First Amendment rights and Freedom of Speech. This morning, as I set aside time to scan other progressive websites, I pulled up the Al-Jazeerah.info site to find something rather unexpected. If any of you are familiar with this forum, you will more than likely recognize many of the writer's who contribute to Al-Jazeerah as they are familiar names to Op Ed News - many are frequent writers for this site. You can imagine my horror when I saw the following statement issued by the founder and editor, Dr. Hassan A. El-Najjir: From the Al-Jazeerah.info Editor to Readers Dear Readers, Al-Jazeerah.info has been a US independent forum promoting peace between the US and the Arab and Muslim worlds and between Israelis and Palestinians, for the last five years. Some people apparently neither like peace nor tolerate the First Amendment to the US Constitution. They have not stopped attacks on Al-Jazeerah, its editor, its contributors and authors. What's new this time is that those who oppose Al-Jazeerah.info have been orchestrating a campaign against Al-Jazeerah.info Editor, personally. A letter writing campaign has been going on since March 22, 2007 targeting officials of the institution I work with in addition to a continuous smearing internet and media campaign against me, personally. I have concluded that it's not safe for me any more to continue editing Al-Jazeerah.info in this atmosphere of intimidation, which abridges freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I promise to resume publication as soon as conditions change to a more peaceful and tolerant discourse. Hassan El-Najjir, Al-Jazeerah Editor About Al-Jazeerah: This is an educational publication that promotes peace in the world, between Palestinians and Israelis and between the US and the Arab and Muslim worlds. Ending wars and occupation is the first step. Al-Jazeerah Peace Information Center is an independent U.S. news and world research publication. It is not related to any other identity or government in the world. In particular, it is not related to the Saudi, UAE, or the Qatari websites with similar names. This website, Al-Jazeerah.info is not related by any means to Aljazeera t.v. station of Qatar.
A native Californian, Jan Baumgartner is a freelance writer currently living in Maine. Her background includes scriptwriting, comedy writing for the Northern California Emmy Awards, and travel writing for The New York Times. She has worked as a grant writer for the non-profit sector in the fields of academia, AIDS, and wildlife conservation and research for NGO's in the U.S. and Kenya. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous online and print publications. Her travels in Africa are the inspiration for much of her work. She's finishing a memoir about her husband's death from ALS.
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United States Of America (2196) Peace Advocacy Activism (51) Right Wing Strategies (33) Freedom Of The Press (27) First Amendment Press (23) Progressive Web (19)
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