Manama: Jordan has requested satellite channel Al Jazeera to provide the documents that reportedly traced the source of jamming of live television broadcast signals of several matches of the Fifa World Cup finals in June and July this year to a location inside Jordan.
The Jordanian government has also urged the channel to send an independent team of experts and officials from the Qatar-based company to examine the facts, a government official said, as quoted by the Jordan News Agency (Petra).
"Despite the categorical denial of the allegations made by unnamed sources to The Guardian newspaper that Jordan was behind the jamming of Al Jazeera's broadcast of the World Cup matches and despite the government's announcement of its readiness to cooperate with any independent team of experts, Al Jazeera continued, through its programmes and news reports, to repeat the allegations," the official said. "The government will not allow any party to harm the reputation and image of Jordan."
Jordan said it preserved the right "to take legal action against all organisations and individuals who try to harm the reputation and prestige of Jordan."
The row erupted after British daily The Guardian reported that secret documents it had exclusive access to traced the source of the jamming of television broadcast signals of World Cup matches to a location within Jordan. Al Jazeera had the World Cup broadcast rights in the Arab world.
In a statement sent to Gulf News last Thursday evening, Al Jazeera said an extensive investigation carried out by several teams of independent international technical experts identified a location within Jordan from where the said disruption of Al Jazeera's broadcast of World Cup matches originated.
"A location in Jordan was used to deliberately jam the satellite signal, causing the live broadcast of World Cup to be interrupted during several matches. As a result, millions of viewers throughout the Middle East and North Africa suffered frequent disruptions," the satellite channel said.
"This action targeted Al Jazeera and was intentionally designed to deprive millions of fans across the region from enjoying this global event. It is alarming that the source of the interruption is in fact from inside the Arab world. We will be requesting the Jordanian government to provide a full explanation for this well-documented incident," the channel added.
However, Jordan said the allegations are baseless and offered to co-operate with any team of independent experts to examine the facts.
"The government also rejects the speculation and opinions expressed by sources in Al Jazeera about the reaction of Jordan to the collapse of negotiations to buy the terrestrial broadcast rights," said Amal Jreisat, from the office of the prime minister of Jordan.
